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I confess. I wasn't able to finish Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
I'm sure it's a very good book and I hope that the author will appear on talk shows and that will motivate me to finish the novel.
Here's the deal: I give myself one week (seven days) to finish a book. So if I read 50 pages a day, that means the book is very good and I don't want to put it down. Potentially, I can read a 350 page book in a week.
Fifty pages a day was a struggle for me and then another book that I had on hold arrived. Isn't that always the way? Every time I put books on hold, they ALL become available at the same time.
The book that I chose to read instead actually suits me more. It's called The Disinvited Guest by Carol Goodman. Carol Goodman has written 24 novels but I've never heard of her. She's received the Mary Higgins Clark award, twice. The Disinvited Guest is her newest novel.
I'm not a big fan of reading about the COVID pandemic. I'm living through it, why would I want to read about it.
But this book is different. Lucy has been traumatized by the 2020 pandemic. She takes her temperature all the time. She washes her hands all the time. She will not shake hands or touch anything. When she goes anywhere, she changes her clothes as soon as she gets home and places them in a bag for days before washing them.
This doesn't sound very different, does it? Well, in the book, it's several years later and a new pandemic is gripping the world. Lucy's husband, Reed, owns a historic private island off the coast of Maine and he invites five other people, seven total, as a getaway. All seven test negative for the virus, all seven have lost family members and friends to the virus. All seven want to relax and forget about germs.
But this is an island just like the one in And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. In the past, the island was used to house typhoid fever patients. Lucy finds and reads journals and other documents from the time. In the journals, there's talk of demons and witches who released the typhoid virus on people, which is why this book also reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand.
Lucy learns that her husband's former girlfriend died on the island by drowning in a bog. The girlfriend had also read these old journals. One thing you should never do is break out a Ouija board while you are alone on a deserted, possibly haunted, island. Of course, these people do.
The characters in this book must not read much. And, of course, the Ouija board gives an ominous message.
And to complete the creep factor, there's a mysterious figure known as the Grey Lady.
At times, I feel that some of the characters are totally unsympathetic; it's all about them and that they didn't really feel a sense of loss over their loved ones who died. But I think that's the point. They left the world, and everyone they know, for a reason.
If you read this novel, I'd love to know what you think.
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Susan Miriello is the Executive Director of the Mifflin County Library. She is currently reading The Disinvited Guest by Carol Goodman.