by Nancy,
A last visit with Ash, Alice and Shifty for now, I hope this series continues. I wonder if we will get to meet “Henry” the dog and learn about him.
My hopes for something less dark and gritty seems to be fading as I read about this months book. I think I’ve given up any chance of plausibility with this trilogy and now am just hanging on enjoying the wild ride.
I guess we could decide if we have a favourite of the tree stories?
Would we read any other Stuart McBride novels, he has written a lot?
I guess we brace ourselves for what happens to Shifty, which we’ve already discussed won’t be good.
Francis and Joseph have been in both novels so far, what are our thoughts on these characters
ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
I hope your Christmas was a happy one with your family around. We spent the time in Brisbane with the kids and are heading up there again tomorrow to move the last of Grace’s things home for awhile. It was wonderful to be all together again finally, I feel very grateful as I know so many people were unable to do that.
I did enjoy this final part of the Oldcastle trilogy, I did feel like it was written with a TV series in mind though. The action was more visual and surface and not so much what the characters were thinking and feeling. This is different from the first story which I felt was more focused on the establishment of the characters. They did feel pain though, lots and lots of pain!!!
Ash seemed to be adjusted too well to losing his daughters and it appears has replaced them with Alice. Alice also seems to have found the family [of sorts] she wanted. No Henry the dog, I was disappointed haha.
I again felt the horriffic crimes perpetrated in the book a little too gruesome and also overshadowed the emotions and reactions of the characters.
The character of Wee Free McFee was an interesting one but Mr McBrides attempt to find a loving caring father figure in him was just a stretch too far.
Joseph and Francis have appeared in all three books, it seems so strange that in the Coffinmaker, Ash would actually call on them for help, but knowing the back story and their violence towards each other may have made that moment more dramatic. I really can’t see that characters like them don’t feel vengeful towards Ash.
Oh, Shifty….poor Shifty. I knew it was going to be bad, and it so was. Of all the characters he was the one I began to like more each time I read about him.
My favourite character was Alice , with all her problems and falabilities . I feel even worse now I know she’s headed for that car accident.
What I have found over the time reading these three novels is Mr McBrides ability to involve my emotions in such violent stories, to feel angry and hateful towards some characters and then worried about the well being of others. I don’t know if reading too many of them would be good for my emotional wellbeing, haha.
I would pick the Coffinmaker as my favourite out of the three and am happy with the order in which we read them.
Wishing you and and yours a happy and safe new year, whatever you’re planning and looking forward to another year of reading and chatting with you.
Love Nancy
Hi Nancy!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year. I'm so glad you had such a lovely Christmas with the family! How are Michelle and Sam doing? We unfortunately got Covid for Christmas. Quite a rough two weeks. The kids are ok, just leftover coughs. Franklin is coughing still as well. I am mostly just still very tired and a bit weak. Otherwise Christmas was nice.
Songs for the Dying was by far my favorite in this trilogy. I loved it. I think if we had read them in the order they were suppose to be read in, I wouldn't have wanted to continue the series. I would rank them in this order:
Songs for the Dying
The Coffinmaker's Garden
Birthday's for the Dead
Birthday's was definitely my least favorite. I think the graphic descriptions of the girls, the horrible annual photographs, and the disappointment in the "whodunit" all made for a less than great novel to me. Whereas I felt, Songs had everything: graphic but not excessive, a strong suprise "whodunit" and of course Ash.
I understand from a parental standpoint how you might not appreciate Ash's adjustment to the loss of Katie and Rebecca. As a reader, however, I would not have been able to handle Ash wallowing in self pity or despair over the girls excessively. I have a tendency to
skip over sections of books when a character is wallowing too much. Yes I agree Ash could have shown a bit more sorrow but I'm not too upset that he didn't.
As strange as it may seem, I loved Joseph and Francis. The Brains and the Brawn, quite a duo! I loved Joseph's eloquent vocabulary and sentences. Just adored them together. They were muscle
for hire and had no delusions about their roles. They could truly separate their "job" from their "personal" lives. A very hard skill set that more people need to learn, myself included. The character
I hated most was Mrs. Kerrigan. She outright scared me in Songs. I cheered when she died. I feel terrible that Alice was the one who killed her though. I wish it had been Ash or anyone else. She was a horrid creature that needed to die but poor Alice. I am so glad Mrs. Kerrigan wasn't in Coffinmaker. I don't think I could have handled reading about her in three books.
I enjoyed reading this trilogy with you. I am not against reading more of Mr. MacBride. Maybe we could throw in a few here and there to give us a little "junk food" reading. Or we could venture into some of the other crime novel writers, I'm open to suggestions.
Much love to you and yours this new year!
Katie