A review by softstarrynights
Sanctuary, by V.V. James
2.0
Sanctury is a mystery novel following the death of a star athlete at a party in the small town of Sanctuary, a town with one witch. The narrative switches POVs between the parents, the kids, and the detective assigned to the case.
This was my first time read V.V. James, though I was aware of her writing under the name Vic James. Why does this matter? Well, because she is not a debut author. This book felt like the work of a debut, and not in a good way. I realised pretty quickly that this is not a YA novel. That was my mistake, but I do read plenty of adult novels so it shouldn't have been a problem. I just wanted to start with that in case anyone else makes that mistake.
As I mentioned there are a lot of POVs, and each chapter is first-person from a different perspective. Off the top of my head I can count four, Both of these I found annoyingly problematic. Firstly it was not easy to tell the POVs apart and for the first third, I spend a lot of time flicking back to the character list to check who these people were. Mystery novels typically stick to one perspective, not just because it makes them easier to follow, but it gives the author room to build suspense as there will be things that the character does not know, and by extension, that the reader does not know. This is impossible to do when you keep switching perspectives. I often say that I enjoy short chapters, and while these were short chapters, they were consciously so. It felt a though James, or an editor, had decided, that a chapter cannot be longer than X amount of pages because sometimes a chapter would just end it a strange place. Is this a cliffhanger? Are we switching to a new POV? No. Because the next chapter would pick up straight away, with the exact same POV.
The other way that James chooses to tell her story is though random transcripts and tweets. This technique is used so sporadic that they felt as though they were coming from nowhere. As with the POVs it lessened the mystery and just made the whole narrative structure seem even messier if that is even possible.
The narrative structure did not help the mystery in any way shape or form, but to be brutally honest, there wasn’t much of a compelling mystery, to begin with. A boy dies at a party and the detective is there to determine whether it was an accident or not, except the focus was not on the party. Instead, the focus was on the parents and something that had happened six years ago. The tagline for this books talks about how the town is shrouded in secrets and yet this thing that happened all those years before is revealed so quickly that it loses all mystery and tension. I find this especially annoying when retrospectively there is a perfect moment to reveal it if only the author had shown some patience and restraint. Essentially, in terms of mystery, it doesn’t feel as though the author really knows how to handle a mystery.
As you can tell I really didn’t like Sanctuary though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I did not go into this book intending to dislike it, and I wish I had enjoyed it. I’d love to know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.
This was my first time read V.V. James, though I was aware of her writing under the name Vic James. Why does this matter? Well, because she is not a debut author. This book felt like the work of a debut, and not in a good way. I realised pretty quickly that this is not a YA novel. That was my mistake, but I do read plenty of adult novels so it shouldn't have been a problem. I just wanted to start with that in case anyone else makes that mistake.
As I mentioned there are a lot of POVs, and each chapter is first-person from a different perspective. Off the top of my head I can count four, Both of these I found annoyingly problematic. Firstly it was not easy to tell the POVs apart and for the first third, I spend a lot of time flicking back to the character list to check who these people were. Mystery novels typically stick to one perspective, not just because it makes them easier to follow, but it gives the author room to build suspense as there will be things that the character does not know, and by extension, that the reader does not know. This is impossible to do when you keep switching perspectives. I often say that I enjoy short chapters, and while these were short chapters, they were consciously so. It felt a though James, or an editor, had decided, that a chapter cannot be longer than X amount of pages because sometimes a chapter would just end it a strange place. Is this a cliffhanger? Are we switching to a new POV? No. Because the next chapter would pick up straight away, with the exact same POV.
The other way that James chooses to tell her story is though random transcripts and tweets. This technique is used so sporadic that they felt as though they were coming from nowhere. As with the POVs it lessened the mystery and just made the whole narrative structure seem even messier if that is even possible.
The narrative structure did not help the mystery in any way shape or form, but to be brutally honest, there wasn’t much of a compelling mystery, to begin with. A boy dies at a party and the detective is there to determine whether it was an accident or not, except the focus was not on the party. Instead, the focus was on the parents and something that had happened six years ago. The tagline for this books talks about how the town is shrouded in secrets and yet this thing that happened all those years before is revealed so quickly that it loses all mystery and tension. I find this especially annoying when retrospectively there is a perfect moment to reveal it if only the author had shown some patience and restraint. Essentially, in terms of mystery, it doesn’t feel as though the author really knows how to handle a mystery.
As you can tell I really didn’t like Sanctuary though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I did not go into this book intending to dislike it, and I wish I had enjoyed it. I’d love to know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.