Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack is an evocative, beautifully written novel that invites the reader to fall under its spell. It follows the lives of two pairs of children — best friends Gareth and Jack, and twins Clara and Blanca — and their families. It begins with Jack’s fall from a tree at age six, an accident that fills Gareth with guilt, causes Jack to lose an eye, and lets Gareth’s mom know that her other son Tristan has actually been blind in one eye since birth. A visit to Jack’s mother Hilda’s workplace introduces the boys to Clara and Blanca, who are albino, and whose mom lives in a psychiatric facility. The boys are taken by Clara and Blanca’s unusual looks, and so the story expands into their growth into adulthood, and the ways in which the children’s lives intersect with various people in their lives. The story takes us from Ontario to Berlin, where Hilda grew up, and through the lens of visual art, photography, film, and music, delves deep into metaphors around ways of seeing, and the differences between sight and vision.

The author writes beautifully. I don’t think I’ve appreciated eyes as much as I did while reading about Siegfried’s craft as an ocularist, and I love how part of Jack’s character growth is shown through a decision to get a David Bowie-esque glass eye that doesn’t match his biological one. I also like how Tristan develops a love for film because the camera lens is also monocular, and how he finds inspiration in filmmakers with partial blindness. Gareth is a bit of an emo blowhard, but his character also feels realistic and complex.

The characters’ and the narration’s fascination with the Clara and Blanca’s albinism rubbed me the wrong way at times. Gareth and Jack often described them as fairies, and as beautiful in an otherworldly way, and both of them become obsessed with capturing the twins’ beauty through their art. I admit this is realistic, and I can imagine boys, especially younger boys and teenagers, thinking this way, but coupled with the author’s beautifully poetic narration, the way characters spoke of the twins’ beauty felt fetishistic at times, and just gave me an icky feeling as I read. Part of that, I think, stems from the girls being portrayed as a unit through much of their childhood (“the twins” rather than individual personalities), which added to this sense of them as objects of someone else’s gaze rather than subjects in their own right.

That being said, I love how the author transitioned the narrative’s treatment of Clara and Blanca as their character arcs progressed. The scene where the twins debuted their singing to the public in a competition made me cheer because of how awesome they were. Having grown up either fetishized or insulted for their albinism, they decide to play up their looks to establish their brand — appearing on-stage in all white with only red lipstick for colour, they declare their musical duo’s name as Bleach. It’s a “hell yeah!” kind of moment, and part of that may stem from my own frustration as a reader with how much other characters tend to objectify them. I also love how the twins’ characters progressed from there, with Clara and Blanca each revealing more of their differences from each other. The author does a good job in showing how other characters’ assumptions about each twin’s personality end up being proven wrong.

As much as I love how the twins grew into themselves as they neared adulthood, I found that the book’s final chapters seemed to drag. The sense of magic and wonder from the earlier chapters seemed to have dissipated — I’m not sure if that was an artistic decision to show the characters’ shift in perspective, or not, but while the parts of the book captivated me, I found myself skimming the last few chapters.

Overall, it’s a good book, and beautifully written. Von Palleske weaves together so many disparate themes, motifs, and metaphors, that it’s impressive how tightly woven the final novel turns out to be. TW: rape (from a family member), suicide, abuse.

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In the second Creature X mystery, documentary filmmaker Laura Reagan travels to Newfoundland in search of the legendary giant eel Cressie. Instead, she and her team find a dead body, wrapped in a tarp (“like a taco,” a character observes), and pulled from the depths of Lake Crescent.

From the start, Lake Crescent is a much tighter and snappier mystery than the first instalment, Roanoke Ridge. Part of it is that Laura’s search for Cressie doesn’t carry as much emotional baggage as the one for Bigfoot. She doesn’t have to contend with her father’s legacy, nor rescue a mentor/father figure, so Dupuis can just take us right into the mystery without needing to set up all the backstory.

Also refreshing is that the question of Cressie’s existence isn’t the main focus of the mystery. As much as I enjoyed Roanoke Ridge, I had to keep suspending my disbelief to remain immersed in the world, because all the Bigfoot sightings and resulting debates had me expecting a Scooby Doo reveal every chapter. In Lake Crescent, Laura and her team recognize from the start that Cressie likely isn’t real.

So despite some attempts by her boss at sensationalism, Laura’s project explores Cressie as an anthropological study. How do legends like Cressie begin? What scientific basis can there be for the existence of giant eels in a lake? And perhaps most importantly, what does it mean for the people who live in the area to have that story capture people’s imaginations? Dupuis peppers his novel with fascinating research into Indigenous stories, evolutionary mutations, and so on. There’s at least one resident in the town who truly does believe Cressie exists, and even with the novel’s pragmatism, both Laura and the narration treat this resident with respect. As a result, I was absolutely captivated by the legend, and after I finished the novel, I immediately went online to see if Cressie were real. (She is!) There’s even a wonderful moment where Laura reflects on the ethics of her investigation — given Cressie’s impact on this town, what would she actually accomplish if she debunks the eel as a myth?

Beyond the fascinating stuff about Cressie, the main mystery in Lake Crescent, a cold case murder, was also very well done. I didn’t guess the villain or their motivations at all, and I loved the Agatha Christie-like feel of Laura actually explaining the solution to a roomful of people for the big reveal. Laura is a fantastic sleuth and series lead. She reminds me of Nancy Drew — intelligent, capable, and brave. But where Nancy can sometimes feel superhuman in her feats, Laura’s humanity feels more rounded. She’s empathetic, which helps in sussing out clues, and it also informs some lovely moments with other characters. For example, she picks up on the nuances of the complicated relationship a local blowhard has with his powerful father.

I also love the friendships between Laura and her co-workers Lindsey and Saad. They work well together, and are all smart and kickass in their own ways, but throughout this novel, Dupuis gives us many moments where we can see how their mutual respect has deepened into mutual trust. Dupuis handles his scenes of emotional vulnerability with a very light, somewhat restrained touch, and manages to make incredible depths of emotion come through. There’s a wonderful scene between Laura and Lindsey, where Lindsey mentions how something in the case brought up traumatic memories for her. Their dialogue is sparse, but speaks to a shared understanding, and by the time the scene ends with Laura saying she was there if Lindsey ever wanted to talk, I just wanted to give both of them a hug. I was also thrilled to see Saad trying on an action hero role in one of the later scenes — I loved him from Roanoke Ridge, and from what I said about him in my earlier review, I love the character growth his actions in Lake Crescent show.

Overall, Lake Crescent is a fantastic instalment to the Creature X Mystery series. As fun as Roanoke Ridge was, I thought Lake Crescent was even better. I felt like the series characters had more room to breathe, and there was a classic, psychological feel to the murder mystery that I loved. The novel ends with a hint at the next instalment: it’ll take place somewhere tropical. Anyone have any ideas what the next Creature X could be?

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love locked room mysteries, so I was immediately intrigued by the premise of The Retreat: an avalanche strands the guests and staff at a remote mountain retreat for artists. Tensions rise, old wounds come to the surface, and then someone dies in mysterious circumstances. We see the story unfold from the perspective of the only newcomer to the group, Maeve, a former ballerina who’s on the mountain for inspiration as she plans the next steps of her career.

The Retreat had many locked room elements I love: suspicious characters, layers of drama, and a situation with no escape. I liked Maeve’s backstory: she’s just coming out of an abusive marriage, so her experiences with her violent and stalkerish ex increase her anxiety about the situation. Those same experiences also come to her aid in the climax, and I really like how the author turns Maeve’s trauma into a useful tool for her survival.

The author is also very good at creating atmosphere: the remoteness of the mountain lodge and the deadly blanket of snow surrounding it felt almost claustrophobic on the page, and I can only imagine how much worse it was for the characters trapped in the situation. The setting itself plays a role as a villain, and there’s a definite sense that even if the murderer doesn’t get you, the snow and lack of access to resources very well could.

Unfortunately, I also found the book to be very slow. Each chapter spans a full day in the retreat, so the entire book is composed of only about 7 chapters. The final one was a whirlwind, and I was racing through the pages to find out what happens next, but the first half or so was a bit of a struggle to get through. It wasn’t enough of a slog that I ever seriously contemplated not finishing it — there was enough of a hook to keep me at least mildly curious throughout, but I never actually felt an urgency to keep reading until the last couple of chapters or so. 

Much of it is that with the exception of Maeve, most of the other characters never really came alive for me enough to care about what happened to them. There was a bossy guy Dan, the sexy but kinda creepy guy Sim, the grouchy young woman Sadie, and other characters Anna, Justin, and retreat owner Karo. All of them played significant roles in the drama and the mystery, but despite their character details and backstories, they all also fell flat for me. Even Maeve took me a while to understand, and she had the most complex backstory. And while Anna and Karo are probably two of the most important side characters in the novel, I don’t have enough of a handle on their personalities to describe them.

Perhaps an even bigger problem was that I also found the characters’ motivations obscure. Possibly this was the author’s choice, because even after the big reveal, there was still a lot of ambiguity around some of the details. But because the strength of a locked room mystery depends so much on the strength of its characters, not understanding the characters made it hard for me to really get into the story.

There are also some odd shifts in behaviour that either didn’t add to the story or didn’t really get explored enough. For example, when Maeve arrives at the resort, Sadie seems to be a major fan. But because Maeve was rude at first, Sadie seems to immediately decide she hates Maeve, and acts all grouchy for the rest of the novel? For someone who works visitor experience, I’d expect Sadie to have a bit of a thicker skin.

The Goodreads blurb identifies this book as a literary thriller, rather than just a thriller, so that may explain the slow build-up and somewhat ambiguous reveals. As I said, the author does a great job in creating and maintaining atmosphere, and I really like how she used Maeve’s backstory within the mystery. Ultimately, this wasn’t quite the book for me — when it comes to thrillers, I prefer the faster-paced, more straightforward style of authors like Ruth Ware, Mary Kubica, and Kelley Armstrong. But I can see the style of this novel appealing to readers who prefer more subtlety and a slower burn.

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Thank you to the publisher an Netgalley for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.