ruthiella 's review for:

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

3.0

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A woman turns up 20 years after having gone missing and she can only account for 6 months of her disappearance. This would seem to be the set up for a standard procedural mystery except, the woman in question, Tara, seems to not have aged in the intervening decades, physically she appears to be 16 years old. Only her young nieces sense something odd about Aunt Tara. Some Kind of Fairy Tale reminded me of the one Charles de Lint book I have read in its mix of realism and folklore, which isn’t surprising since the author not only quotes from de Lint, but also notes his influence in the acknowledgments. I enjoyed reading the book, which is told from a variety of perspectives: Tara, her brother, the boyfriend she left behind, her psychologist, etc. But what was missing, for me at least, was any sense of ambiguity or mystery about what really happened past the first 70 pages or so. Read for The Readers November book club selection.