Amalia Gkavea

To me, this seemed no better than the average melodramatic romance -which I avoid like the plague- fully equipped with one-dimensional characters and atrocious dialogue. Tru and Will are the most boring mother-son figures you'll ever come across. But these aren't the major issues. What made this a nightmare was the writer's audacity to include Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights in her soap-opera/cry-me-a-river abomination down to a bad mimicking of names and themes. Have some common decency, writer....

It was heroic on my part that I was able to reach the 50% mark before I toss this one into oblivion. I don't rate a book I don't finish but this had a plotline related to the book I have been obsessed with all my life. Bear with me... Readers who are not as strict and obnoxious as I am will probably enjoy this much, much more.

Many thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

  ‘'The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill, is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side as if in answer to some sound though the evening is quiet - dry hum of the road outside the window and little to draw the ear besides.''
Miri's world falls apart when her wife, Leah, seems to have been lost in a deep-sea mission that went awry. When the impossible happens and Leah returns, their life changes in a way that no one could have foreseen. Leah has become water. She is slowly turning into a nymph of the sea, an otherwordly creature whose condition cannot be clarified. The only thing that can sustain the facade of normality is love. But is love enough to save a life?
Following her superb collection Salt Slow, Julia Armfield's debut novel is an ethereal, haunting, mystical masterpiece.
‘'I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.''
Julia Armfield composes a shuttering elegy of love and grief, the sacrifices we are bound to make when we decide to share our life with the one we love, the compromises of the past, the hopes and fears that control the future. In a modern fable, in a contemporary folk tale of the sea and its mysteries, Leah and Miri struggle against the unpredictable current of Life. When the one you thought lost forever returns, when you see that they have become a shadow of themselves, when you find yourself ready to surrender to the inevitable, memories can give you strength. When you know that you would eventually give up everything to experience those magical moments of falling in love with someone all over again, then you have only one choice. To love. There is no alternative.
‘'I love going into the cinema when it's still light and then coming out in the dark. Makes me think about the way a city is never the same. I mean, the way everything changes. Every night, every minute, it's over and things will never be the same again.''
Is there stability and certainty? Our lives can change within seconds. The dry land is as fluid as the sea, our daily course may seem mundane but are we keen on surprises? Are we fond of dreams in which nightmares have made their lairs? Julie Armfield poetically describes the fight of both women as Miri tries to stay afloat and Leah struggles to make sense of a world that is no longer known to her. Their thoughts and unique voices are portrayed to perfection, flawlessly communicated, so real, so familiar, so tangible.
‘'My heart is a thin thing, these days - shred of paper blown between the spaces in my ribs.''
We will find references to Kon-Tiki and the Blood Eagle of the Nordic civilization. Mysticism and religious folklore with a particular focus on St Brendan, one of my favourite Irish saints, the seafarer who battled against monsters and demons. The myths of the tides, the voyages in the seven seas, the unbreakable and devious bond between the human and the ocean with its treasures and its dangers.
[‘'...and then one night he comes upon a man chained to a pillar of rock, in the middle of the sea - just there, just there in the ocean like this great, tall fang rising from the waves, this thing that shouldn't be there, a man at the mercy of the elements. So St Brendan calls out to him and he learns that the man is Judas - Judas who gave Jesus up for dead - Judas, the failed apostle - and St Brendan learns that Judas is there because the way in which the Lord chooses to show him mercy is to free him from his torments, to free him from hell on Sundays and Holy Days, and cast him adrift on the ocean, where he can at least feel the wind on his face.''
And carried by the waves and the wind are our regrets, our sorrow, our love and the things that were foolishly left unspoken...
This novel is destined to be one of the masterpieces of 2022.
‘'Ghosts don't speak'', she said to me. ‘'People misunderstand this. They think that when you're haunted you hear someone speaking but you don't. Or not usually. Most of the time, if you hear something speaking, it's not a ghost - it's something worse.''
Many thanks to Picador and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
 

There are bad books. There are offensive books. And then there are books so drenched in ignorance, arrogance, and faux spiritualism that they leave you wondering how they were published in the first place.

The Day After His Crucifixion is marketed as a deeply moving spiritual novel, one that gives voice to the women around Christ in the immediate aftermath of His death. What it delivers instead is a theologically void, historically inaccurate, and emotionally tone-deaf mess—wrapped in clumsy dialogue and dressed up as empowerment.

Let’s begin with the most outrageous omission: the complete absence of the Virgin Mary.

In a story set in the wake of the Crucifixion—a moment that shattered her maternal heart and crowned her with the silent dignity of suffering—the fact that she is not even a presence, a shadow, a thought, is not just an oversight. It is spiritual illiteracy.

How can anyone claim to speak of Christ’s final hours and exclude the woman who brought Him into the world? Who stood at the foot of the Cross? Who carried the unbearable weight of grief, faith, and maternal love?

This omission is not artistic—it is disgraceful.

And it doesn’t end there.

The author rewrites Gospel timelines, most egregiously by having Lazarus resurrected before Jairus’s daughter. A careless error—one that no writer dabbling in sacred ground should dare to make.

The women in the novel are not empowered—they are preachy, shallow avatars for the author’s personal ideology. Their frequent snide commentary about the Holy Apostles is disrespectful, not bold. This isn’t reclamation. It’s revisionist posturing with no theological backbone.

The characters speak like they’re moderating a women’s retreat in 2024, not grieving the death of Christ in 1st-century Judea. There’s no reverence, no atmosphere, no spiritual rhythm.

And finally, just when the book couldn’t get more disappointing, I received an unsolicited email from the author herself, asking me to leave “a few good words” or “at least 5 stars” because she “poured her heart into it” and “paid a lot” to make it free on NetGalley.

Let me be absolutely clear:

I do not review with pity. I do not reward theological cosplay. And I certainly do not offer stars in exchange for guilt.

This book is not a tribute to Christ. It’s a vanity project masquerading as devotion.

It offends the faith it pretends to honour.

It silences the most powerful woman in the story.

And it insults the intelligence of every reader who takes Scripture seriously.

I do not recommend it. Not for Christians. Not for historical fiction lovers. Not for anyone who values truth.

Let it be forgotten.

I have read hundreds of books on the Paranormal and hundreds of books on Irish Culture. This volume is one of the most informative, haunting, moving and scary reads I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time with. Not only does it offer rare information on the contemporary perspectives of the paranormal in Ireland, but it also allows us to compare and contrast stories and phenomena in different cultures. What makes this book unique is that most of the incidents narrated took place between the mid-20th century and the early 2010s.

The Introduction (which is beyond brilliant, by the way) offers an interesting, thought-provoking comparison between British and Irish reactions to the Paranormal. What do we learn from this wonderful book? A multitude of views and experiences. The shadows of the Irish Revolution, the Troubles falling on hospitals, execution sites, even houses. The tragedy of the Great Famine. Haunted priories, abbeys, boarding schools. What I truly loved was the detail and the attention placed on experiences related to haunted houses, hotels, and inns (some of which had no bloody past to explain the phenomena). There is also a deep feeling of sadness permeating the accounts. Parents losing their children, visitations and omens of death, strange and menacing dark oddities, contemporary sightings of the Banshee and the ghost lights on the bogs. There is even an entertaining section of extraordinary phenomena recorded between the 12th century and the 16th century.

This book is pure perfection. From the atmospheric front cover to the vivid writing and the stories included, a haunting trip to Ireland has never been better!

  ‘'In life, there are only two paths: to act or not to act. Humans must choose one.''
The Son: A little boy, who had to experience his parents' divorce, wants to go back in time to show them he is happy no matter what. He wants to show them his smile, although I doubt they would actually care. Meet two of the most self-absorbed parents in Contemporary Literature. Meet two of the most realistic parents of our modern, unethical age...
The Nameless Child: In one of the most heart-rending stories of the series, a widow wants to return to the past to show her deceased husband the son he never had the chance to meet. Bring out the tissues for this one, it will haunt you to the very end. Marvelous and bittersweet.
The Father: A complex family drama of a father who refused to give his consent to her daughter's marriage and a daughter who is devoid of any kind of personality, good judgment and common sense. A girl who can't say ‘no' to anyone is a recipe for disaster. Add idiocy and an inferiority complex to the mixture, and you have no one to blame for your ordeals but your miserable self. Plain and simple. 
The Valentine: Two friends meet each other in the past, having fallen victim to their hesitation, misunderstanding and low self-confidence.
The fifth instalment of our beloved series is the darkest yet. There are a few utterly shocking moments that left me speechless (and that's an understatement...), and the themes of loss and death permeate the four stories. Regret in not expressing what you truly feel, insecurity when your parents cannot make you feel safe and protected, the distance between a wife and a husband when he cannot understand that maternity isn't the be - all and end - all of a woman's existence. The irreparable loss that strikes like a thunderbolt, the harshness of a father that makes everything worse, the low self-esteem that can lead us to serious mistakes, deepening an irrational inertia.
However, do not think that all is pure doom and gloom. We have the precious moments spent with our parents that no one can take away from us. The deep love that death cannot erase. The important lesson of making mistakes and learning since our parents cannot shield us from every evil in the world. We never know when Fate will decide to take matters into her own hands with irreversible results. Let us be aware of this and move on.
In addition, Toshikazu Kawaguchi offers new aspects of the Funiculi Funicula magic, twists that we were not aware of and interesting insights into the Japanese society, customs, and urban legends.
Healing doesn't come from lovey-dovey, fairytale situations. Healing comes through turbulence, pain, deep sorrow. So, if you think that this part of the series is ‘too dark' to belong in the Healing Fiction genre, congratulations on building your own bubble. Now it is time to wake up and face the world.
‘'Regret comes in two flavours: actions taken and opportunities missed.''
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/