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A review by marilynw
Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James
4.0
Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James
Justine Eyre (narrator)
After enjoying this author's last two books I'm going back and listening to her older books. I like the way she mixes the supernatural with everyday life in such a way that I'm not always sure what is going on and if it's not really just a fluke of something natural. In this story we meet Jo Manders, mourning her loss of her husband who parachuted over Germany and was never seen again. It's England 1921, Jo is supporting her mentally ill mother in a care home and she's running out of money so she takes a job as an assistant with her husband's wealthy, condescending, demanding aunt.
After a three month stint of travel with the aunt, who increases her wealth buying and selling art, Jo settles with her aunt in the recently reopened family mansion. It's there that Jo finds out things that Alex never told her and she begins to have doubts about how honest he'd been with her throughout the time she knew him. She also starts seeing and hearing things that seem to be related to the dead. And it's obvious that the aunt wants Jo to marry her war injured son when Jo never wants to marry again. Jo has no one she can talk to and no where to go, especially when her mother's welfare depends on Jo's salary.
The story is gloomy, with a sense of foreboding. There is the feeling that nothing good lurks in the future, while so many bad things have already happened. Jo's depression is a part of her and it seems she will never be rid of it and now her memories of her husband are suspect since she thinks he lied about or omitted so much. Jo even wonders if she is mentally ill like her mother, because she has seen Alex's dead cousin, a girl that committed suicide. The gothic feel of the story, with the sense of dark dread combined with Jo's exhausted, worn down demeanor, had me doubting everyone and everything, too.
Published April 5th 2016 by Blackstone Audiobooks
Justine Eyre (narrator)
After enjoying this author's last two books I'm going back and listening to her older books. I like the way she mixes the supernatural with everyday life in such a way that I'm not always sure what is going on and if it's not really just a fluke of something natural. In this story we meet Jo Manders, mourning her loss of her husband who parachuted over Germany and was never seen again. It's England 1921, Jo is supporting her mentally ill mother in a care home and she's running out of money so she takes a job as an assistant with her husband's wealthy, condescending, demanding aunt.
After a three month stint of travel with the aunt, who increases her wealth buying and selling art, Jo settles with her aunt in the recently reopened family mansion. It's there that Jo finds out things that Alex never told her and she begins to have doubts about how honest he'd been with her throughout the time she knew him. She also starts seeing and hearing things that seem to be related to the dead. And it's obvious that the aunt wants Jo to marry her war injured son when Jo never wants to marry again. Jo has no one she can talk to and no where to go, especially when her mother's welfare depends on Jo's salary.
The story is gloomy, with a sense of foreboding. There is the feeling that nothing good lurks in the future, while so many bad things have already happened. Jo's depression is a part of her and it seems she will never be rid of it and now her memories of her husband are suspect since she thinks he lied about or omitted so much. Jo even wonders if she is mentally ill like her mother, because she has seen Alex's dead cousin, a girl that committed suicide. The gothic feel of the story, with the sense of dark dread combined with Jo's exhausted, worn down demeanor, had me doubting everyone and everything, too.
Published April 5th 2016 by Blackstone Audiobooks