Reviewed
by: BigAl
Genre:
Mystery/Paranormal
Approximate
word count: 50-55,000
words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, or Smashwords store
Author:
“Melissa
Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a
variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: biography, contemporary,
western, action, romance, fantasy, paranormal and spiritual. She has
been both traditionally and independently published and is a regular
contributor to the superblog Indies Unlimited. She lives in a small
community in northern Arizona with her husband and an Airedale
terrier. She also writes under the pen name Amber Flame.”
Description:
“Julia
Martin, newly-divorced but still reeling from her husband’s
infidelity, takes a much needed vacation to visit old college friends
in Germany. While touring a little-known concentration camp and
museum, she spontaneously experiences a violent past life memory of
being murdered in this very camp during the Holocaust. Efforts to
understand her memories only lead to more questions, the largest
being: is her killer still alive? Supported by her friends and
comforted in the arms of a handsome doctor, Julia attempts to uncover
the mysteries of her past life and find justice for the person she
used to be.”
Appraisal:
Wikipedia
says that suspension of disbelief “is a term coined in 1817 by the
poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested
that if a writer could infuse a 'human interest and a semblance of
truth' into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment
concerning the implausibility of the narrative.” To put this in a
more simplistic way, write a good story, and the reader will
willingly (probably subconsciously) play along with the parts they'd
never believe in real life.
At its
heart, Fleischerhaus
is a mystery. Actually two. The first is what is causing the
protagonist Julia to have the flashbacks? Hallucinations? Whatever it
is that happens when she visits the site of a former concentration
camp feels like a memory of a past life, but her brain doesn't want
to believe. I'd never believe this in real life, but while reading I
was onboard from the start, not questioning it at all.
The
mystery of who Julia was in this past life was the first puzzle to be
solved. (If they could verify the things she was feeling actually
happened, then maybe she really was experiencing something from a
past life. As those pieces started falling into place it setup
another mystery, who murdered her in that prior life and was it too
late for him to face justice? This was well written. Integrated what
I'm assuming are reasonably accurate bits of history into the story,
and was a clever, well executed story idea. Definitely recommended if
an offbeat mystery appeals to you.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating:
***** Five Stars
1 comment:
Thanks, Al! Glad you liked it!
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