Quiet Comforts

Afternoon Kindle-ites,

Before I jump into today’s review I wanted to give you a quick heads-up as to why I have been absent. #1 No, I am not dead. Though I do (humbly) appreciate the 50 or so emails I have received asking if I was. I am not in rehab, I have not been hit by a car, and no…my tendency to run into trees did not land me in traction. The truth: I quit my job. (This is a good thing not a bad thing so…don’t panic.) BUT because I did the job of roughly 5 people, I had a crap-load of loose ends to tie up…making it almost impossible for me to do anything by focus on math for more than 2 weeks. Thankfully, all of that is behind me now, leaving me time to get back to my books, (and roughly 70 loads of laundry.) I would like to thank all of you for being so patient with me the last few weeks, and I look forward to starting the brand-new (very weird for me) journey.

Mucho Love  – Misty

On to the good stuff…

It’s not often that I think of a movie when reading a book. A song yes, I have even encountered the exact opposite and thought of a book while watching a movie, but with “In The Arms of Stone Angels” the very first thing that popped into my head was “The Cell” from 2000. While the plots are similar (not enough to say either copied each-other) that is not what caught my attention, the imagery was.

In short “In The Arms of Stone Angels” is a murder mystery (don’t be fooled by the very YA Paranormal cover art – which is beautiful but a tad misleading)

Brenna catches (or so she thinks) her best-friend (and 1st love) in a very compromising situation…hovering over a dead girl with a bloody knife in his hand, and in a moment of pure panic she calls the cops and turns him in. Now, 2 years later she is back in town and (realizing she made a huge mistake) is determined to find out who the real killer was. But… her being in town isn’t exactly the healthiest of things for her or the people around her. Why? Because the real killer is very desperately trying to drive her out of town (or…at the very least drive insane like her now psychologically comatose friend.) The book follows Brenna (her very unique ability to see dead people) and how she struggles against convention (and herself) to find out the truth and set her friend free.

Now, back to the imagery…Jordan Dane did an absolutely breath-taking job of describing dream-state in this novel. At one point the reader is asked to step outside of their comfort zone and enter a state that is considered “real” when actuality it is all inside of her friend’s mind. While this could have (very easily) read as hokey or ridiculous it instead reads as original and unflinchingly creative. I had no problem visualizing the scenarios that were introduced and that (in my own opinion) is the mark of a very good storyteller. Even more importantly was the twist at the end of the story which until the last 20 or so pages you couldn’t see coming. (A must in any murder mystery)

Overall, A very original story with hidden lessons and great writing.

Highly recommended for lovers of both mystery and YA.

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