kiramke's review against another edition
4.0
I love a gothic mystery in a creepy old house, but not as much as I love weather-related magical realism and winter bleakness. The atmosphere and lovely silences are very compelling. The modern mystery storyline is a bit off, it feels like an overlay to just get the people in place, but I don't mind as I enjoyed the rest so very much.
riverdogbookco's review against another edition
2.0
Well-written, gothic, with elements of magical realism. But it felt like a good third draft that needed a little bit more editing and a few stronger connections between plot points to actually hold it up.
kirstenfindlay's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
toadsoup's review against another edition
3.0
Loved the aesthetic and concept, wasn’t fond of much else.
bibliokyra's review against another edition
4.0
After losing her parents and twin sister to the raging sea, Henna moves to an isolated, snow-laden Arctic village. Still grieving, Henna retreats inward with her sister’s basset hound as her only companion. She spends her time writing ice and water-related encyclopedia entries for a publisher. Henna’s quietude comes to an end when a dead woman’s body shows up on her property.
The woman is clutching the fragment of an ancient letter written by Lady Jane, the wife of famous Arctic-explorer, Captain John Franklin. Consumed by the mystery of the woman’s death and the contents of the letter, Henna is thrust into the enigma surrounding snow collectors and the doomed Franklin expedition which vanished in 1845. On her quest for answers, Henna is introduced to an eccentric cast of characters and led through crumbling mansions and towers throughout the icy village.
The story is set in a near-future Alaskan setting where birds and bees are endangered and glaciers have disappeared. The passages are short, alternating between Henna’s past, Jane Franklin’s search for her husband and the mystery of the dead body. Henna is an unreliable narrator which contributes to the eerie feel of the story. With gorgeous prose, Hall weaves together a vivid, icy landscape, magical elements and nineteenth-century history to transport you into this atmospheric, gothic mystery.
The woman is clutching the fragment of an ancient letter written by Lady Jane, the wife of famous Arctic-explorer, Captain John Franklin. Consumed by the mystery of the woman’s death and the contents of the letter, Henna is thrust into the enigma surrounding snow collectors and the doomed Franklin expedition which vanished in 1845. On her quest for answers, Henna is introduced to an eccentric cast of characters and led through crumbling mansions and towers throughout the icy village.
The story is set in a near-future Alaskan setting where birds and bees are endangered and glaciers have disappeared. The passages are short, alternating between Henna’s past, Jane Franklin’s search for her husband and the mystery of the dead body. Henna is an unreliable narrator which contributes to the eerie feel of the story. With gorgeous prose, Hall weaves together a vivid, icy landscape, magical elements and nineteenth-century history to transport you into this atmospheric, gothic mystery.
bookalong's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book! Very atmospheric, and full of mystery.
Henna lives a remote existence in an Alaskan village where it never stops snowing. Her only companion her Dog. She is still haunted by the loss of her family. One day she discovers the dead body of a young woman in the forest and decends into an ghostly investigation of how she died. I dont want to say too much here and spoil the mystery, but it was very engrossing.
I loved Henna! She was a well developed and realistic heroine. The way the author interlinked past and present in the storyline was brilliant! This story has a very gothic feel to it, and the wintry landscape added so much feel to this story.
Hall's prose were beautiful and poetic. I hadn't heard of this author before but will definitely be reading more of her after this book. What a gem!
•
Thank You so much to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
Henna lives a remote existence in an Alaskan village where it never stops snowing. Her only companion her Dog. She is still haunted by the loss of her family. One day she discovers the dead body of a young woman in the forest and decends into an ghostly investigation of how she died. I dont want to say too much here and spoil the mystery, but it was very engrossing.
I loved Henna! She was a well developed and realistic heroine. The way the author interlinked past and present in the storyline was brilliant! This story has a very gothic feel to it, and the wintry landscape added so much feel to this story.
Hall's prose were beautiful and poetic. I hadn't heard of this author before but will definitely be reading more of her after this book. What a gem!
•
Thank You so much to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
jeddiemarie's review against another edition
2.0
2.5/5 stars
From the moment I read the synopsis for this book I was enthralled. I’ve always been drawn to stories of mysterious disaster and the Franklin Expedition was something that I had heard of, so I decided to order The Snow Collectors on a whim having never read anything from the author or the publisher before.
To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. The writing peeved me at every turn. This is another in a long list of books that I wish had been written by a different author. Maybe then I would have liked it more.
The story begins with the main character, Henna, finding a body of a woman in the woods that dot her snow-covered property. From there, she finds ripped fragments of a letter that she soon discovers was written by Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the captain of the Franklin Expedition that disappeared into the Arctic in 1845. The chapters alternate between one page long snippets of Lady Jane’s life and Henna trying to figure out what happened to the dead woman while being haunted by her past and thwarted in her investigation by a mysterious entity.
The plot was interesting, but the writing made it nigh on unbearable to read for the majority of its 200ish pages. None of the characters had depth, they all just felt stagnant and like caricatures with one personality trait. Every sentence was a metaphor that made almost no sense. The amount of references to raw meat and livers had me gagging. There is basically no dialogue, so we spend the majority of the novel inside Henna’s head and, my god, is that not a place I want to spend another second. The pacing is incredibly slow and meandering and, because of this, I was left feeling as if there was no point to anything that was happening. It was as if the author just wrote the book without having anything to say. There were also vague references to things that, if handled differently, would have been incredibly engaging and would have added much needed insight into the world. Things like the snow collectors catalogues of snow, water divination, the pebbles that seemed to have been conjured into Henna’s life from the island where Franklin’s men might have perished, even the Expedition itself. None of them felt as though they were explained enough.
As it is, though, this book was pretentious, boring, and rudimentary. It finds a bit of a stride near the end that saved it from getting a lower rating from me, but I still don’t really recommend it. It’s not awful, but it isn’t unique or anything that’s going to stick with me. I might research more into the Franklin Expedition because of it, though.
From the moment I read the synopsis for this book I was enthralled. I’ve always been drawn to stories of mysterious disaster and the Franklin Expedition was something that I had heard of, so I decided to order The Snow Collectors on a whim having never read anything from the author or the publisher before.
To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. The writing peeved me at every turn. This is another in a long list of books that I wish had been written by a different author. Maybe then I would have liked it more.
The story begins with the main character, Henna, finding a body of a woman in the woods that dot her snow-covered property. From there, she finds ripped fragments of a letter that she soon discovers was written by Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the captain of the Franklin Expedition that disappeared into the Arctic in 1845. The chapters alternate between one page long snippets of Lady Jane’s life and Henna trying to figure out what happened to the dead woman while being haunted by her past and thwarted in her investigation by a mysterious entity.
The plot was interesting, but the writing made it nigh on unbearable to read for the majority of its 200ish pages. None of the characters had depth, they all just felt stagnant and like caricatures with one personality trait. Every sentence was a metaphor that made almost no sense. The amount of references to raw meat and livers had me gagging. There is basically no dialogue, so we spend the majority of the novel inside Henna’s head and, my god, is that not a place I want to spend another second. The pacing is incredibly slow and meandering and, because of this, I was left feeling as if there was no point to anything that was happening. It was as if the author just wrote the book without having anything to say. There were also vague references to things that, if handled differently, would have been incredibly engaging and would have added much needed insight into the world. Things like the snow collectors catalogues of snow, water divination, the pebbles that seemed to have been conjured into Henna’s life from the island where Franklin’s men might have perished, even the Expedition itself. None of them felt as though they were explained enough.
As it is, though, this book was pretentious, boring, and rudimentary. It finds a bit of a stride near the end that saved it from getting a lower rating from me, but I still don’t really recommend it. It’s not awful, but it isn’t unique or anything that’s going to stick with me. I might research more into the Franklin Expedition because of it, though.