A twisty psychological suspense novel that will lock you into its claustrophobic spell.
I’ve been reading several books selected by the International Pulpwood Queens & Timber Guys Book Club, now that my novel Pause has been chosen as a 2022 title. I look forward to “meeting” Deborah Goodrich Royce this week via the weekly Zoom get-togethers hosted by Kathy L. Murphy for PQTG authors and readers. (Check Pulpwood Queens website for schedules and links.)
I’m fascinated by the way different people react to potentially scary situations. Ruby Falls opens on the scene of the child Ruby taken by her father into a deep tourist cave at Ruby Falls and then abandoned when her father pulls loose from her hand and disappears forever. The author notes that a childhood family trip to a cave where the lights were turned off, in order to experience total darkness, frightened her. I remember childhood cave experiences when that absolute darkness thrilled me – but on the other hand, clowns always creeped me out….
Light and darkness, and their mutable attractions, figure in the novel. Ruby remains traumatized by the cave experience into her twenties. Newly fired from her acting role in a soap opera, for vaguely reported reasons, she impulsively marries Orlando, a handsome stranger met during her escape to Italy. They move to Hollywood, where Ruby – as an adult using the name Eleanor (“Ellie”) – lands a movie role. All seems idyllic after the couple buys a rose-covered cottage, but the picture soon frays around the edges. Orlando’s hair-trigger shifts of mood quickly signal “abuser,” and he seems determined to gaslight Ellie, probably for money. He also apparently is having an affair. Ellie, who has seen a psychologist in the past, starts to recognize what’s up and decides to find proof. Her troubles have only begun….
I want to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that Royce tightens the screws on Ellie very effectively, as the walls seems to close in on her like the blackness of the cave that can still give her nightmares. The story comes alive in every scene, as the author provides plenty of sensory details that ground us in place, like the unusually-colored roses in her neighbor’s garden, an antique desk with its secret drawer, the Laura Ashley curtains and pillows in her dream cottage turned cage. I have to admit that the tension in the early chapters, in which Orlando’s manipulations felt all too real, made me put the novel down for a couple days for a breather. But I couldn’t resist this page-turner, and soon raced through to the finish. Movie version, anyone?
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
