The Realm of Secondhand Souls

There is a wonderful birth* scene in this story of secrets. Secrets that fester, that cause action and angst. Secrets revealed. *Other novels with births surrounded by vehement circumstances of one sort or the other: Rebecca Ore's 'Being Alien'; Sylvie Germain's 'The Book of Nights'; Sheri S. Tepper's 'Shadow's End'; Karen Joy Fowler's 'Sarah Canary'; Tanith Lee's 'Book of the Mad'; and Anne Rice has a wild birthing scene under a tree in a storm in one of her books but I can't remember which one. All these books most interesting to read.

Ms. Shea's debut novel borrows heavily from the magical realism school of Allende, Esquival, Marquez. Shea's writing is superb, its sheer beauty and luxuriousness taking one's breath away yet breathing life into one's being, much as Novena inhaled Annaluna's breath to sustain herself. The lushness of the prose and style complements the dense and fathomless subject matter. Unlike true magical realism, though, there is some grounding here. One does not need to suspend all disbelief; perhaps the novel tugs so much at one's core because deep down so many of us yearn to believe such magic can happen...that Shea has woven together disparate pieces of fabric from us all into a grand creation worthy of Novena's skills herself.The filmy gossamer permeating the story tugs at us, pulls us into the magical web, the tangle of spirits and souls inhabiting not only Novena's world but ours as well.There are a few disappointments here...some loose ends, as it were, that I wish had been addressed. But the overarching whole of the Novena-Zan-Annaluna dynamic was supremely satisfying.Like the dust that seeps into the cracks, the ghosts who come to visit, the memories that never quite fade though we may not see faces or hear voices clearly anymore...a sudden aroma, a filmy vision, a chance encounter...all can lead to the ghosts and spaces we harbor within ourselves.

I couldn't put this book down. I found the story to be thoroughly engrossing and well written. The writing style was beautiful, containing vivid desriptions of places, feelings, sensations and fabrics. I truly hope this new author will continue to offer such beautiful fiction.

I was contentedly reading along what appeared to be an interesting story when I tripped over the beginning of Chapter 5. The description of a girl living in a house of boys blew me away. I have lived that experience and the words and emotions jumped out at me. As the eldest sister to four younger brothers,I relived the days of being overwhelmed by the raging testosterone! I had to stop and catch my breath. This is truly a gifted writer. As one who is herself in the final phases of completing my first novel, I am now thoroughly intimated. I almost want to throw my own feeble manuscript in the trash because I could never replicate the textural flavor of this work. This is a writer who knows how to evoke all senses in telling a unique story. Please let there be another book like this one in the pipeline!

This book has poetry in its soul, and has restored my faith in the American novel. With richly fertile prose, Ms. Shea took my mind to root-crabbed, subterranean dark places, and to bright places of soul-searing brightness. What a read! Please savor this book, roll in it, bathe in it. I am a reader who often throws books down, half-finished, in disgust. And so I am very happy to have found this new novelist, Sandra Shea, and to encourage other curmudgeons of fiction to make this book their own.