Review #37: Black Lands by Belinda Bauer

Title=Black Lands

Author= Belinda Bauer

Format= Advanced Reading Copy from Publisher

Publisher= Simon and Schuster

Genre= Fiction/Suspense

ISBN=978-1-4391-4944-7 (240 pages)

Release Date= January 5, 2010

Rating= 8 stars out of 10

My Review and Description:

This is an incredibly intense and psychologically captivating read. Did I like it? Did I enjoy it? No. Like and enjoy are not two words I can associate with this book. Did it move me? Change me? Paralyze me with fear? Enrage me? Yes, to all four. Because of the emotions it brought out in me, my rating for it was high. (See my new rating system for 2010 along my sidebar). The writing was splendid and riveting. The story line too real and frightening. The characters flawed and raw. The ending justifying.

The story starts with Steven, a 11 year old boy living with his Grandma, his little brother and his mother. Steven's household is not one filled with love or warmth. It's as if it is frozen in time, back to the day his Uncle Billy disappeared. The day that his family stopped living.

His Grandma holds out hope for his return, his mother feels weighted with the burden of two kids and his little brother entertains them all in his childhood innocence.

Steven is already a quiet and unusual child but his love for digging makes him even more strange. This is his escape and along with his friend, Lewis, he spends most of his Saturdays digging up holes around his town.

Not an entirely bad hobby for an 11 year old kid but what Steven is digging up or what he HOPES to dig up are the remains of his Uncle Billy.

Billy never came home and no evidence of his body was ever found. No closure.

Steven is determined that if he finds him he will bring his family back to life and give peace to his Grandma (Nan).

He takes it once step further however and that changes the pace and feel of this novel.

Arnold Avery was a known and convicted child murderer serving his sentence in a nearby prison for admitting to the murders of six children. Steven is convinced that Avery killed his Uncle and knows where he is buried. He begins writing him letters in hopes of getting closer to the truth.

What starts is a terrifying game between a cruel man and a hopeful child.

This is a really good book to review with my new rating system because I felt so many things about it when I read it. It's not as simple as a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Now that I am a mother I can not easily stomach topics that involve harm to children especially if it is graphic in nature. So my unease with the topic should not hinder my rating of it's overall storyline and the talented writing style of the author. The voice is sharp and original. I could not ignore that.

I do recommend Belinda Bauer as an original author with a talent for bringing to life the grit and reality of lives in limbo. She gives us a psychological thriller, a mystery and a family drama. A warning to readers, there are parts of the story where the character of the child murderer details his fascination with his crimes. These are the parts, as a mother, I found difficult to read.

This had the weight of a Joyce Carol Oates' novel and the grit of a John Connolly thriller.

Thank you to Wendy and Alyson from Simon and Schuster for sending this to me.

Happy Reading!

red headed book child

(Note: I am currently catching up on my pile of books sent to me from Simon and Schuster from the last six months. I feel they all deserve reviews and I am trying to time them according to their release dates. That is why you are seeing so many reviews from this particular publisher. They are just really kind folks I've met in my years of bookselling who continue to appreciate my love of reading.!!!)