Julie's Review: The Keepers of Metsan Valo

Author: Wendy Webb
Series: None
Publication Date:  October 5, 2021
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Pages: 313
Obtained: publisher via NetGalley
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Gothic
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: Stories aren't always stories
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Summary: In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling. By firelight she spun tall tales of spirits in the nearby forest and waters who could heal—or harm—on a whim. But of course, those were only stories…The reading of the will now occasions a family reunion. Anni and her twin brother, their almost otherworldly mother, and relatives Anni hasn’t seen in forever—some with good reason—are all brought back together under one roof that strains to hold all their tension. But it’s not just Anni’s family who is unsettled. Whispers wind through the woods. Laughter bursts from bubbling streams. Raps from unseen hands rupture on the walls. Fireflies swarm and nightmares stir. With each odd occurrence, Anni fears that her return has invited less a welcoming and more a warning. When another tragedy strikes near home, Anni must dive headfirst into the mysterious happenings to discover the truth about her home, her family, and the wooded island’s ancient lore. Plunging into the past may be the only way to save her family from whatever bedevils Metsan Valo. ~amazon.com

Review: No one does atmospheric gothic stories like Wendy Webb and she continues that with The Keeper of Metsan Valo. When Anni goes back to her childhood refuge after her grandmother dies, she starts to feel like the house has shifted without her grandmother there to oversee it. When her twin, Theo arrives they both start to experience things that can’t be explained. Waking up in the forest, fireflies buzzing about and other strange occurrences. Not to mention the long-term caretakers are acting really strange and being all mysterious. 

Theo and Anni get to spend some time together and with their mother before the rest of the family come for the will reading and funeral. They each learn something new about each other's lives and the changes they have gone through recently. Things get really strange after the reading of the will in regards to the elder females of the family. 

This book isn't a horror novel; it is more in the vain of Fairy Tales and gothic stories which is why I loved it. It's about how all stories are based on some truth or folklore. 

This book is very much about honoring your culture, stories, family and tradition. It’s also about coming into your own and owning your destiny. I can't give too much away because you all need to read it yourselves. 

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Julie's Review: The Vanishing

Author: Wendy Webb
Series: No
Publication Date: January 21, 2014
Publisher: Hyperion
Pages: 304
Obtained: publisher
Genre: Horror
Rating: 5
Bottom Line: Spooky on so many levels.
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Summary: Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired . . . and who the world believes is dead. When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls. ~amazon.com

Review: I had read Wendy Webb's The Tale of Halcyon Crane a couple years ago and loved it. So when I read the summary for The Vanishing, I knew I couldn't pass it up. I'm so glad I got an early copy of this one. Ms. Webb has created a truly gothic atmosphere with Havenswood and the strange goings-ons in the mansion.

Of course Havenswood is a character in itself; it's eerie, dark, huge and old. Of course you are going to hear things and perhaps see things. It is really Amaris, Julia, Adrian and Drew that make the book for me. It is the intricaies of how they build their relationships that intrigue me. Amaris is perhaps the most intriguing of them all. A world-renowed, best-selling author who has been in hiding for 10 years. What happened in her life that made her want to vanish?

We quickly know why Julia would want to leave her current life. It's understandable that she would want that to go away. So I can't say I blamed her for jumping for the offer from Adrian Sinclair. Her motives aren't the ones I question. Throughout the book it is Adrian's motives that I constantly am evalutating. Also, as dreamy as Drew is, I wondered what his motives were as well. As for Amaris, I figured she was just lonely and needed companionship and maybe she was a little less lucid than previous years.

What Ms. Webb does an excellent job of is keeping you wondering throughout the novel. She writes in such a way that you get chills up your spine with regular frequency. She writes Havenwood so well that you feel like you are there walking the halls. You feel the cold of the snow storm, the chill of the ghosts and the warmth of the fires. I don't like to be scared but I do like to be spooked; and spooked I was. I felt what Julia was feeling. The depth of her unease towards the end of the book was my unease.

I still have The Fate of Mercy Alban to read and it will be read sooner rather than later. If you haven't read Wendy Webb before, The Vanishing is a fantastic place to start.

Thank you to Hyperion Books for my copy of the novel.


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And the Winners Are...

Congrats to Stephanie, Debbie F, Cheryl F (aka The Lucky Ladybug) for each winning a copy of Wendy Webb's fantastic novel The Tale of Halcyon Crane.

Please email me (Julie) your mailing address so we can send the book off to you as soon as possible.

Thanks to all of you for participating. As always, I used Random.org to produce the winner.

Guest Blog: Wendy Webb

Last week I read, reviewed and raved about The Tale of Halcyon Crane. Today, I'm thrilled to have the author, Wendy Webb, do a guest blog for us. Warning: There might be slight spoilers.

The Making of a Storyteller
It’s no surprise that I write stories for a living — I grew up in a family of storytellers. Some of my earliest memories involve sitting at our kitchen table listening to my parents and grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles tell tales about the people who lived in the tiny town where they all grew up. Reaching back into their childhoods, they’d bring to life strange, quirky, hilarious and even terrifying characters, now long dead, their ghosts whispering in my imagination as I write tales of my own.

My dad tells about going to the movies as a little boy, pre-World War II, in an ornate single-screen theater that’s dark now, having long since been replaced by a soulless multi-plex in a strip mall outside of town. But back then, young and old alike would congregate in this beautiful theater each week to see what Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn or Roy Rogers had in store for them on the silver screen. One Saturday afternoon, my dad noticed a gaggle of old ladies, widows dressed in black, recent Italian immigrants like many of the people who lived in the town at that time. They were shaking their fists at the screen, talking back (loudly) to the actors and actresses, offering advice or admonishments based on what was happening in the movie. During one particularly dramatic scene, the heroine arrives just after her beloved has died. He tried to hang on, but she was too late. One of the ladies stood up, threw her hands in the air and shouted: “NOW you come!” This is been a joke in my family for as long as I can remember.

My mother and her cousins love to tell about a strangely menacing pair of twins who lived down the block from them — stark white hair, ghostly pale skin, eyes so light they almost weren’t a color at all. She and her cousins would hurry past their house on the way to school hoping the twins wouldn’t cast the evil eye in their direction. Anyone who has read my novel, THE TALE OF HALCYON CRANE, now knows where the idea for the triplets came from.

The town was filled with bootleggers during Prohibition — many families had stills chugging away in the second, hidden basements of their homes. Mobsters came from Chicago (Ralph Capone was a regular visitor, as was John Dillinger), and tales circulated of their ill-gotten gains hidden in various locations around town. Many of the shops on the main street still have secret tunnels in their basements that snake under the streets, leading to safe getaways.

But there were wonderful stories as well. My dad and his pals ran wild, living in a sort of Huck Finn world where they would laugh around a campfire at their secret swimming hole just outside of town. My mom’s grandparents, Finnish immigrants, had a farm nearby. One afternoon a fawn wandered into the yard and stayed, taking an instant liking to my mother, who was just a child. She kept it as a pet until it was a full grown deer, which would follow her around like a puppy. Readers of HALCYON will see the similarities to the story of Hallie’s grandfather Charles, who had an otherworldly way with animals.


As a child, I’d listen to all of these fantastic tales, but I wouldn’t add any of my own. I was quieter than my outgoing, boisterous family, and I turned to writing when I wanted to tell the stories that were swirling around in my head. My first work of fiction, written when I was in elementary school, was a story about riding bicycles with my dad on an autumn afternoon. We went through a tunnel, and all of a sudden we realized that we had traveled back in time, back to his boyhood home. With all of the strange and delightful stories I’d heard about that place and time, it’s no wonder I wanted to see it for myself.

I’ve been a writer ever since. But through the publication HALCYON, I’ve learned that I’m also something else. I’ve had the chance to do many readings in bookstores and elsewhere, speaking in front of people for the first time in my life. I wasn’t sure how I would do — I’m a writer, after all. But to my astonishment, as soon as I stood up in front of that first group of people, I found that I was a story teller, too. I was speaking in the voice of my parents, my grandmother, my brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. Suddenly, I wasn’t the quiet little girl listening to her family’s tales of the past — I was doing, quite naturally, what generations of my family have done. Telling a tale.

Don't forget we have 3 copies of The Tale of Halcyon Crane to giveaway as well. Click me!

Giveaway: The Tale of Halcyon Crane

As you can tell from my review of The Tale of Halcyon Crane that I LOVED it. So, I'm ecstatic to say that we have 3 copies of this wonderful novel to giveaway.

In order to enter, there are a few simple rules:

1)You need to be a follower of our blog through Google Friend, Twitter and/or our Facebook page. (I will be checking)
2)Tell us why you want this book
3)Enter the contest by Friday, May 14th at Midnight CST.

Another huge thanks to Jason @ Henry Holt for providing us with the copies to giveaway.

Good Luck!!

Julie's Review: The Tale of Halcyon Crane

Summary: When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago? In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family’s lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen. ~amazon.com

Review: Do you believe in ghosts? Would you if your family history was filled with them? Would you question your sanity if you felt like someone was touching you, when there was no one around? I ask because that is what Hallie James is dealing with in The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb. I just can't say enough about this fantastic novel, well I can but then I'd ruin the book for you and that I don't want to do.

This book takes off from the very first page. Hallie James receives a letter that declares her mom recently died. This sends her into a tailspin because she always thought that her mom died in a fire when she was young. A few other things happen in Hallie's life that cause her to run to Grand Manitou Island to research her new found heritage. The way Ms. Webb writes this novel it makes you feel like you are in step with Hallie, experiencing everything she does. Instantly I liked Hallie. She seemed very real and genuine.

There are some fascinating secondary characters in this book. The island itself is a character with its own history and secrets. My favorite character next to Hallie and Will, is Iris. I kept trying to figure her out and I couldn't. Where my brain was taking me, was so not where the story ended up. Just one of many twists and turns in the book. The ending of the book was such a shock that I had to go back and re-read it twice to make sure I understood what had occurred.

Ms. Webb does an excellent job of making sure you are attached to the characters and all of their stories. So much so that the story would freak me out at times. The night I started reading it our garage door opened on it's own twice. The 2nd time I made my husband unplug it. LOL Sure it's a coincidence but freaky nonetheless.

As I said above I can't really say much about the book that wouldn't give it away. What I can say is that you want an edge of your seat ghost story, family drama, mystery and well written book, you need to run out and buy The Tale of Halcyon Crane. While this book is a ghost story, more than anything it's about family, knowing your heritage and embracing it.

I can't wait to see what Ms. Webb has up her sleeve for her next novel. Frankly, the way she tells a story she could write about how to paint a wall and I'd be in line to buy it. She is a solid storyteller and a gifted writer.

Typically I don't do this but this book reminds me a lot of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe and Darling Jim by Christian Moerk.

Final Take: 5/5