Have You Read Mary Lynn Plaisance, Writer Extraordinaire? And My Friend! Here's The Latest of Hers I just Finished! The Voice Behind the Small Attic Door

 

I have a stack of TBR Books for Mary Lynn Plaisance on my piano top... They await until I can figure out just how to get back to reading paperbacks with my new eye prescription inserts. So far, even adjusting to Kindle is not as easy as it once was... Soooo, when I got an email from Author's Den about one of Mary's books, I zoomed out to Amazon* and read it in a day...

Fortunately, the suspense starts right at the beginning, so that by the time I was reading into the night, I was fully aware...and had met...

Piddle Paddle Waddle.”

Marion and Walter brought their distraught daughter to their home from the church. Susan was clearly in shock. The doctor was on his way, a psychiatrist and neighbor, and a friend of the family for decades. She needed to be sedated. The tragic event after the wedding was a nightmare, and they wondered how Susan would make it through such a horrifying experience. When Dr. Jenkins arrived, he ordered the paramedic to give Susan a shot of valium to calm her shaking body. The paramedic unit stayed parked in front of the house well into the night. Susan had been crying since they left the church and no one could calm her down. Still in her wedding dress, Marion and Walter brought her upstairs to the room she had as a child. She would rest much better in her quiet room upstairs than in any one of the rooms downstairs filled with grieving family members. Marion and Walter needed time to think about what they would do for Susan. As they closed the door to her room, they saw that she fell asleep holding on to her big, white, stuffed bear that she named Titus. She had him since she was only five years old. Her stuffed white bear was the same size as her when she was five years old, and he was her special friend ever since then. When anything went wrong, she held Titus close to her heart. Standing in the upstairs hallway, Dr. Jenkins told Marion and Walter, “Today will stay in Susan’s mind for quite a long time. None of you will be able to console her. Just let her do what she wants, short of harming herself, and time will take its course in her recovery. There’s nothing more to do.” Marion and Walter were still in tears. “I don’t think she will ever be well again,” said Marion. “She wanted to get married since she was a child. She always played bride and groom, but there was never a groom. Her room was filled with toys, and she had so many little party dresses of all colors, but she loved the white dresses most. She was always the bride.” Marion’s tears could not stop flowing down her cheeks while she spoke.

“Like I said, this will take years for her to get over, if ever. She will need therapy.I’ll help you if you want. If not, I can leave you with the name of a good therapist who may be able to help her later. As this event sinks into her mind, it will take a while for her to accept what happened. She will be in denial, and then she will get angry. After the anger comes depression, before she can accept what happened. All of this is normal when anyone goes through grief.” 

Marion cried more than before. “Thank you Doctor Jenkins. Please help Susan. She knows you.”

“I’ll do all I can to help her. Give Susan these pills when she wakes up, as needed. Just give her time. Lots of time.”

“Thank you so much, Doc.” Walter grabbed the doctor in an embrace of sorrow. There were no words to say. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and this was surely unexpected.

Marion and Walter went downstairs to talk to the family and Susan’s friends. They ate what the caterers brought to their home from the wedding reception. Everyone shared stories of the morning and mingled to find some comfort. Both sides of the family were still in shock. After four o’clock, the caterers took their equipment, and friends and family cleaned up everything in the kitchen and living room. Dr. Jenkins stayed for a while longer to make sure Susan was okay. Harry, Velma, and Gladys stayed to help overnight.

The thought of such a bazaar accident was beyond comprehension. Nothing like this ever entered anyone’s mind.

Susan stayed asleep in her room. Susan’s room with the small attic door...

~~~

Susan had been looking forward to being married since a very early age. Part of that was because her parents owned a boutique where she was surrounded by beautiful, fanciful clothes. And she even had the opportunity to wear dresses in their commercials! Dozens of dresses she had worn for parties were now tucked away carefully in their attic.

In fact, Susan's parents doted on their only child and had given her anything she wanted, so that, as she grew older and had met the man of her dreams, they even bought a home to live in pending the marriage ceremony.

Author's Wedding Day!

And, indeed, the wedding was

beautiful with Susan in her $30,000 dream dress that was made to her exact specifications, even if she did have trouble getting into and out of her limousine... And everybody would enjoy those funny pictures and all the photographer was taking--as he had done for every moment of the event!

But once Mike had helped her push the tull to allow the door to close, he anxiously ran around to his side of the limo...

Nobody saw the car coming... And then it came into view, curving wildly, fast, and clearly out of control. And, actually, there was no driver... Susan saw the car push Mike away from the car and she swiftly turned trying to get out, while her mother rushed up, trying to keep her in the car... Trying to protect her child from seeing that her, now, husband...was...dead...

Nobody knew how to deal with such a tragedy. Emergency vehicles swiftly appeared to help in many ways, one of which was to help take the family to their home. Many later gathered at Susan's parents home and the food from the reception site was carried in... 

Titus and Susan

But Susan was asleep with Titus, her protector and friend since the age of 5 when he came to first visit and stayed. She had always hugged him tightly as she fell asleep each night. But, now, she clung to him day and night, sleeping mostly, and never leaving her room, ignoring food and anybody who wanted her to come out.

Her parents' bedroom was near Susan's and, as her father got up the next morning, he heard talking from Susan's room. He knocked, then looked in. Susan was hugging Titus and sleeping...

Hearing talking continued, but Susan, even if awake, said she wasn't talking to anybody.  When asked about calling any of her friends, she said she had lost her phone. Was she talking to herself?

Finally, one morning she woke up as if after a long sleep. She greeted her mother and told her she had to hurry this morning because she had a test...Susan, according to her doctor who came immediately, sadly indicated that she had apparently pushed out all recent memories and was back, safe, in school... But, even then, she began to talk back to her father with snide remarks. Soon both parents found her now abusive, after there never having been situations like these in the past. 

And the talking went on...

The intriguing part about this Louisiana Author is that you will never know what to expect when you open one of her books.  Readers will quickly pick up on the suspense as the book starts. We have already raised the question--well, who is the voice that lives in the attic? Perhaps Susan had an imaginary friend and in her loss of memory has begun to talk to that individual from her past... I love how the author pulls us along as, seemingly, events begin to not happen as planned. 

What we do know is that something happened to Susan after her husband was, essentially, run over by an empty car! Has she had a breakdown? Trauma that has affected her mind and reality?

Well, to know what happened to Susan, you'll have to meet Piddle Paddle Waddle... You'll find her in the video above if you look carefully... So, I just have one question for all of you? Are you a kind person, who does acts of kindness?

If not. Beware...

GABixlerReviews 

*A number of proofreading issues was found in the book format; however, they did not interfere with my enjoyment

Review: A Festival of Skeletons - Oh My!

Image by Ninja M. via Flickr

A Festival of Skeletons


By RJ Astruc






OMG, what had I gotten myself into? Yes, I had accepted to read and review a new "Dark Comedic Fantasy." My first. Actually, I didn't know the specific genre since it came to be as scifi/fantasy, so I decided, what the heck... It's not that I don't enjoy laughing, but I have found that what other people find very humorous is oftentimes just not funny to me. So, as a professional reviewer, I decided to review the storyline and not worry about whether I thought it was funny--and do the best I could...

RJ Astruc is an excellent writer and I would love to see her work when she's not on a bender. What? She says that in her bio. (Check out her web site by clicking the title of this article.) So as I started to read, it was easy to become interested in the basic storyline, even if I was not even smiling at her dark comedy...but of course, as her bio claims, her husband has six nipples, so she can't have everything, right?

First of all, most of her characters are found on the front cover of her book. I found as I got further and further into the story, I would go back to check out the character and study the individual one I was reading about--she's done an excellent job of describing them in word, but her artist, Jonatan Iversen-Ejve has also done a great job of portraying them! Ok, I admit it, the characters soon grew on me, even the "merkind."

So I found myself in Kamphor. I should let you know that there is magic there and some individuals and/or merkinds have the capability to use it. Like Mr. Sink, the one on the cover in the middle holding a skull. You may immediately think he is a cross-dresser; and he has gotten to like it now, but originally, he was advised to dress lighter to deal with his issue--being able to know when somebody was going to die. Fortunately, Mr. Sink is a mortician (or did he become one because of his ability, I'm not sure)

Mr. Sink was the only one who would give employment to his two assistants. Joshua is the hunk on the left of the cover (with the "shiny" ax). Vona Urgarth is the Merkind and is very grateful for her job, given that she eats both her own kind and...whatever... One other character I'll highlight is Percy (next to Mr. Sink on the right); he's nothing special--except that he's only 17 and he can get (and does) any woman he wants. Not very long after he had met Vona, however, Percy finds he is in love, the enduring kind...

The underlying story is a whodunit! Young women are being killed and mutilated. Most have been prostitutes; however, one of Percy's lady friends is also an actress and when she had to try out for a part, she had dressed for it and mistakenly was also killed. Although his affection was now with Vona, Percy felt he had to help find her killer.

The police, specifically, Mr. Sink's neighbor Arifia Fawles (yes, she's on the cover) believes Mr. Sink and or somebody from his household, is guilty. Actually, she's way off base because Mr. Sink is trying to solve the crimes as well! There is one man who hates Mr. Sink, but who was once his assistant. He is the brother of a woman with whom Mr. Sink was in love. In fact, she had asked him to marry her, but when she kissed him, he drew back suddenly. She was so shocked that she ran from him, out the door, and was hit in an accident. Her brother, Mr. Torvault hating Mr. Sink became a mortician and opened a competitive business on the other side of town.

Now, I'm not even going to mention The Knife, who used to kill like the present deaths were being done and who had never been caught. Nor am I going to mention The Fifteen Step Program that was started by Mr. Sink's lover and now headed by Joshua--you'll see a step beginning every chapter--like, Step Fourteen: Don't turn on those who try to help you.

I'm also not going to mention the Necromancers, the box full of skeletons, The Sentinel. I'm especially not going to go into the relationship between Vona and Percy, nor that when Mr. Sink is arrested, the members of the Step Program are brought into help...

Really, I'm not going to tell you any more. You have got to read this book to believe it. So what if I didn't laugh, it was gruesome enough and unbelievably sarcastic in other spots. Anything and everything you can think of just might be in this book...

Ok, I didn't love it but I couldn't put it down--hmmm, strange...maybe the magic...

For the genre, it is an excellent addition. If you are already a fan, then ENJOY!

GABixlerReviews