As an undertaker, Clara spends most of her days in the basement of a funeral home, carefully preparing dead bodies for their final viewing. In every casket she carefully hides a bouquet of her choice, lovingly selected to emulate their qualities and personality, if she knows them. One day she sees a little girl, Trecie, alone in the funeral home, who will neither leave or leave Clara alone. When Mike Sullivan, a policeman who is determined to get to the bottom of a three-year-old murder of another abused little girl, begins asking Clara questions, they realize that the cases may be related. Clara must choose between isolating herself and saving the life of a little girl who has found her way into her heart.
I surprised myself by liking this book so much. I have been making an effort recently to read and review the ARCs that didn’t catch me on my first try and eliminate any possible backlog. I’d categorized this one as a murder mystery, not my favorite, and the description of preparing a dead body for a funeral on the first few pages didn’t do much to peak my interest. So it sat unread and I felt guilty. Well, now I don’t feel guilty, and I’m happy because I read a fantastic book.
The one thing that pulled me in this book and wouldn’t let go was the character of Clara. Clara had a hard, hard childhood, bits and pieces of which are given to us throughout the narrative. As a result, she’s developed certain coping mechanisms, and one of them is hiding herself from the world, associating with mainly dead people, the two owners of the funeral home, and her garden. When Mike comes poking around, asking questions about the little girl who she essentially repaired more than she has done for any other human being, Clara’s defensive walls start to crack a little, and they continue to do so over the course of the novel. It was this slow unveiling which made the book for me. The other characters are similarly interesting and multi-dimensional; it’s hard to guess at the “bad guy” until clues start coming in thick and fast, because he seems good enough most of the time.
The only thing that bothered me were the many descriptions of dead people, particularly the one at the beginning where Clara describes what she does to them. I can’t say I really needed to know that. I understand to a basic extent what goes into preparing a body for an open casket but I didn’t really need to know all about it. Clara and various police officers and helpers also routinely go to the houses of dead people to pick the bodies up. All of these pickups do provide us with plot development, but corpses make me uncomfortable. It was worth it to get past that, but it is worth noting if this squicks you out.
Overall, I found this to be a great book with a fantastic main character. I think it would appeal to both mystery lovers and non-mystery lovers like me, because there is enough character development and suspicion to go around! I’m sorry I didn’t get to this book sooner; it was that great.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
Oh my! I am rather ambivalent about this one.
I LOVE the cover – and I am most definitely a fan of murder mysteries, so these two aspects lead me to believe that this book would be one that I might enjoy. The description of dead people being prepared for burial? Not so much. I am not sure that I would have persevered in completing the novel the way you did.
I am glad that it was worth the read. Thank you for the honest review.
Molly’s last blog post..BTT: Special Interests
I have an ARC of this one, too, and also never got around to reading it last year. The advance publicity sounded promising, but once I took a longer look at the book I decided maybe it wasn’t for me. But after reading your review, I think I might take another stab at it – it still sounds very intriguing.
JLS Hall’s last blog post..Booking Through Thursday: Finding My Niche
This book sounds good. You know I like murder mysteries. Meghan please bring this book home.
This book sounds like just the thing for me. I am curious about the scenes in the mortuary, and you make the book sound very interesting, what with the great character development and the elements of suspense. I am definitely going to be grabbing a coy of this one. Thanks for the great review, and I’m glad you really loved it!
Zibilee’s last blog post..Palace Circle by Rebecca Dean – 432 pgs
The descriptions of preparing the body don’t sound very appealing, but the rest of the book does. I love a good mystery.
Kathy’s last blog post..Happy Blogiversary to Me! (plus a giveaway)
I’ve seen occasional reviews for this one and have had it on my TBR list since I first heard about it on Bookbrowse. I even had it out from the library at one point, but returned it unread because got pushed aside by other books screaming to be read. Thanks for the encouragement to movie it back up the ‘read soon’ list.
SuziQoregon’s last blog post..Library Loot – June 12
I like mysteries and I don’t mind the body descriptions at all. I like the cover, too! And Medieval Bookworm once again adds to the financial ruin of Ms. BRF. . . .
Beth F’s last blog post..Review: In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
This sounds very different from the books I normally pick up, but you’ve made me want to read it! I love a protagonist that just pulls you in. And like others have said, the cover is just gorgeous.
Nymeth’s last blog post..The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
Hmm. You’ve got me really curious about this one. It sounds like something I would really like. Thanks for the great review!
Literary Feline’s last blog post..TGIF: Mail Call & Friday Fill Ins (June 12, 2009)
The cover is fab. I may read it just because of that.
heidenkind’s last blog post..Thursday Tea Time!
Wow, this look really interesting! Both the story and the character are intriguing to me!
And that cover is just amazingly beautiful!
Kay’s last blog post..The Fan Shelf presents : Write Meg!
I remember being interested in this when I first heard about it, and then it sorta slipped my mind. Now I definitely want to read it again! Hopefully, I’ll get it on my list this time…=)
Definitely sounds like a compelling read, and I love the cover art! Like you, though, I’m sure I would be totally freaked out by the corpse talk and discussion of the embalming process… ick! I have an active imagination — I could figure all that out myself!
But the mystery and Clara sound great. I’ll look for it!
Megan’s last blog post..Book review: ‘The Sugar Queen’ by Sarah Addison Allen
I’m so glad you posted this! I had forgotten about this book which has been languishing on my wish list for a while. The author spoke at a local lit festival last fall, and the book was added to my list then. I haven’t picked it up yet, but with your reminder I’ll look for it the next time I have something in my book budget.
If you’d like to hear Amy MacKinnon talk about the book and inspiration for it, I have an audio clip in my post about the author event (here)
Dawn (sheIsTooFondOfBooks)’s last blog post..Product review: *A Life Well Read* reading journal and organization system
This book surprised me as well. I’m glad I gave it a chance!
S. Krishna’s last blog post..Along for the Ride – Sarah Dessen