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Cool again Keira is off to town to find Polly. Not like anyone is looking for her or anything. She has gone to town so much for a person trying to lie low she is failing. I am just so confused on why she cares so much to figure it out. Plus why she thinks she is the one in trouble and has to not go to the police. She is so worried she was the one who did something bad from before she is willing to lie low and move 6 hours away. This book has an almost eerie undercurrent running through it. It felt like people weren't in control of their actions and they could explain away their misdeeds by blaming the rainforest. The Whispering.
Keira has no memory of who she is or what has happened to her. All she knows is that there are men searching for her and they can't find her. She finds sanctuary with a kind pastor in the small town of Blighty. As she makes friends and starts to put down roots she also discovers she has the unique ability to see ghosts, and she wants to help them move on. When Jenny is offered the job of dressing the heroine of Mercury theatre by Mrs Dyer, the wife of the owner, she has every reason to be grateful. Jenny's brother Greg had a bad parting with The Mercury and Jenny is struggling to make ends meet and care for her three younger siblings. This opportunity is a god's gift, and so what if Mrs Dyer wants Jenny to spy on the leading lady Lilith? But as the story progresses, Jenny realises that she has bitten more than she can chew and is soon hanging between the two women, in turn liking and hating both these complicated characters. And then there's the muse and her curse which Jenny feels is destroying Lilith as well as The Mercury. But what can a lowly dressmaker do but watch them all burn? Callum Haffenden returned to Granite Creek after thirty years of avoiding it. He had a major life-altering accident at the Far North Queensland boulders; the same place where two girls, seventeen years apart, and now a local grown man went missing without a trace. All the locals had been warned about the whispering, and knew better than to step out of the rainforest trail to follow it.You are Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster-hunter known as a Witcher. You’ve fully regained your memories since your miraculous revival and escape from the Wild Hunt, and have cleared your name of the false accusations of regicide. In the wake of the assassination of Foltest, king of Temeria, the north have been rent by warfare as Nilfgaard launches its third major invasion, and the northlands have been united under the insane king Radovid. Overshadowing these petty politics is the mysterious return of Ciri - Geralt’s adopted daughter, who is now being pursued by the Wild Hunt. Let Purcell enter us into the dark world of the theatre, where the price of success and fame may be too high to pay. Our main protagonist is Jenny Wilcox, who after being fired from her previous place of employment is hired by Mrs Dyer, wife to the owner of The Mercury theatre in London’s West End, to dress their leading lady Lilith, who’ll play Lady Macbeth in their first ever production of Macbeth. It seems like a dream job, one which will pay a life changing sum of money and finally lift Jenny and her siblings out of poverty. Though, as with anything which seems too good to be true, there is a catch. Mrs Dyer also hires Jenny to spy on Lilith as she suspects she holds some scandalous secrets involving her husband. It isn’t long before Jenny becomes embroiled in an escalating plot of revenge orchestrated by her employer and also must manage Lilith’s ravings of the deal she has made with Melpomene, the tragic Greek Muse. Jenny doesn’t believe in curses, ghosts nor Greek muses, but as dreadful events surrounding the theatre begin to unfold, her reasoning wavers. What once felt like a dream soon transforms into a nightmare. The mystery element in The Whispering is a slow burn which worked well in my eyes. The pace is set to a constant beat with some great acceleration towards the end of the novel as the book winds to its highly anticipated conclusion. Tying into some underlying themes around rumour, gossip, reporting, folklore, policing, regret and disability makes Veronica Lando’s debut a liberal slice of Australian crime fiction. The Whispering will ensure you keep your eyes open for the duration, it’s an all consuming read!
Set in Far North Queensland the book has such an atmospheric setting that you feel like you are right there experiencing the tropical weather with the humidity and the constant rain with a cyclone fast approaching. At the Mercury Theatre in Londons glamorous West End, rumours are abound which all point to the impossible, curses that could never be anything more than simple hearsay and gossip. Unless….. I was slightly worried there’d be a supernatural theme to this book as it’s not a genre I enjoy, but – though there’s reference to ‘whispering’– Queensland author Lando sets the events of this book (past and present) firmly in this earthly realm. The Whispering Lando’s lead is an excellent character and I gravitated towards this figure from the early moments of the novel, right through to the dramatic close. A man with an inherent drive to get to the truth, I greatly admired Callum’s tough resolve. I also found Callum’s past history in regards to his family and acquaintances interesting to uncover. The folk of Granite Creek are a fantastic conglomeration and I saw them as a very solid representation of a community feeling the impact of such long standing tragedy. Lando interrogates this aspect of her novel at all points, making the community tension aspect a true highlight of this novel. There’s nothing to it. The whispering is folklore. A legend that kids say to frighten each other, or cruel parents tell to keep their children from falling to their deaths.’The story begins with Callum Heffenden returning to Granite Creek 30 years after he left vowing never to return. Unable to refuse and eternally grateful for the position of dresser to Lilith Erikson, Jennifer soon learns there's more to the situation. Mrs Dyer explains that her husband has been bewitched by the woman, and Jennifer is to keep a close eye on her. The reader is thrust straight into the social politics of the theatre, and additional meaning and nuance is communicated in the different plays the characters stage throughout this historical fiction masterpiece. The Whispering Dead by Darcy Coates is a paranormal mystery novel, and the first in the Gravekeeper series. I wouldn't call it horror. The story managed to continue to build with intensity, drawing me in just as the Whispering supposedly draws the unsuspecting hiker to the deadly drop to the boulders below.
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