by Johana Gustawsson - Translated by David Warriner
SYNOPSIS
1899, Belle Époque Paris. Lucienne’s two daughters are believed dead when her mansion burns to the ground, but she is certain that her girls are still alive and embarks on a journey into the depths of the spiritualist community to find them.
1949, Post-War Québec. Teenager Lina’s father has died in the French Resistance, and as she struggles to fit in at school, her mother introduces her to an elderly woman at the asylum where she works, changing Lina’s life in the darkest way imaginable.
2002, Quebec. A former schoolteacher is accused of brutally stabbing her husband – a famous university professor – to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who has recently lost her own husband and is parenting a teenager and a new baby single-handedly, takes on the investigation.
Under enormous personal pressure, Maxine makes a series of macabre discoveries that link directly to historical cases involving black magic and murder, secret societies and spiritism … and women at breaking point, who will stop at nothing to protect the ones they love…
REVIEW
This is it. This is the book I have been waiting for all year.
It's that one story that you just can't get out of your head, the book that you want to tell everyone about and the story that will be haunting me when I sleep.
The story is told over three separate timelines which move backwards and forwards in time between Paris and Quebec. In 1899 Lucienne turns to the controversial spiritualist community when her daughters go missing after a devastating fire in their home in Paris. Switching to Quebec in 1949, Lina is struggling after the loss of her father. Her mother wants to keep a closer eye on her and insists that the meets her at the care-home where she works every day after school. It is here that Lina strikes up an unusual friendship with an elderly resident who begins to open Lina's eyes up to darker beliefs and black magic. Finally, in 2002, Detective Maxine Grant returns to work after a period of maternity leave and is faced with a shocking murder. The suspect is her old schoolteacher, leaving her and all of the town's residents in total shock and disbelief at the thought of this pillar of their community being capable of such a horrifying crime.
Call me morbid, but I love a good murder investigation - the darker the better. I also love stories about witchcraft and I enjoy reading historical fiction that has a gothic or supernatural element. Essentially, it felt like this book was written especially for me. However, surprisingly it wasn't the murder, police investigation or séance scenes that really got my attention here - it was the main character Maxine, her inner conflict at returning to work and the accuracy of this struggle to balance motherhood and work life. As a mother, you are expected to return to work after maternity leave and pick up exactly where you left off, get straight back into your previous role as if nothing has changed when, in reality, every single thing about your life is different. A story with a focus on witchcraft or the occult can sometimes feel a little far-fetched. Similarly, a very unusual crime or particularly brutal murder scene can sometimes seem a little unrealistic. But, with Maxine as such a solid and believable character, she grounded the slightly more 'out there' aspects of the story and as a result made these elements completely believable too.
With multiple timelines and multiple points of view, I usually find that I end up preferring one strand or set of characters over the others. With The Bleeding I loved each part equally and the way every element of the story was woven together was just perfection. Towards the end of the book as each of the three stories began to link together I could hardly bring myself to read on. I was desperate to find out what happened, while at the same time I didn't want the story to end.
The Bleeding is dark, devastating and utterly flawless. The ending just destroyed me, I was so unprepared for it, and despite this, all I wanted to do was to start reading it all over again.
Stephen King's Carrie, mixed with Max Seeck's The Witch Hunter via A.J. West's The Spirit Engineer - The Bleeding is a shocking murder mystery with a supernatural twist. It is hands-down my favourite book of the year, and I have to give some of the credit here to David Warriner for a flawless translation - every single page was just effortless to read. For any of my fellow crime fiction fans, historical fiction fans or translated crime fiction fans - this is a MUST READ!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson
has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and television. Her
critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and Blood Song,
has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte,Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du
Polar awards, and is now published in 28 countries. A TV adaptation is currently underway in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. The Bleeding – number one bestseller in France and the first in a new series – will be published in 2022. Johana lives on the west coast of Sweden with her Swedish husband and their three sons.
Thanks to Anne Cater - @RandomTTours, Orenda Books - @OrendaBooks and Johana Gustawsson @JoGustawsson for the opportunity to read and review.
Fiction: Crime Fiction / Detective Fiction / Occult / Horror
Publisher: Orenda Books
ISBN: 978-1914585265
Pages: 300pp
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