“Mark Fife was being watched. He realized this in a coffee shop three blocks from the townhouse where he and his girlfriend, Allison, lived, sitting in a stuffed chair with his back to the front window… Allison had left Mark alone to use the restroom, and he was pretending to read the Dispatch while he waited. And then came the prickle at his neck, the sudden shock – as though a sly lover had drawn the tip of a fingernail across the short hairs of his nape. He lifted his eyes from the paper and scanned the shop, but no one was looking his way. “

You Came Back
By Christopher Coake

It’s been seven years since the death of Mark’s little boy, Brendan. In that time Mark’s marriage fell apart and he almost didn’t survive his own grief. Mark spent too many days and months blaming himself for Brendan’s death and turning to alcohol to numb his pain and while his grief is still a part of him, his life has turned around somewhat. He has a new relationship which is going well and he’s managed to work out his relationship with his ex-wife to where they have become friends but then Connie Pelham finds him.

Connie and her son are living in Mark and Chloe’s old house she is desperate to get in touch with them because Connie believes Brendan’s ghost is still in the house and wants to communicate with Mark and Chloe.  Needless to say her first attempt at approaching Mark doesn’t go over too well but she persists.

Mark has always been a skeptic and doesn’t believe Connie but her insistence is hard to ignore and he still feels a deep sense of responsibility for Brendan’s death so once again Mark finds that he can’t move on in life. Grief is consuming him and how can he fail Chloe and Brendan again? Is Brendan really in the house waiting for his parents?

Going into this book I thought I was in for a ghost story or a supernatural thriller but instead it was a story about love and grief. Grief can be all consuming for some, destructive for others and a veritable merry-go-round where you feel like you keep going over the same thoughts, same actions and no one understands. I felt like the author captured this messy cycle so well.

Source: Personal copy

“I never believed a book could save your life. It makes sense that Conner Joyce would be the one who changed my mind about that. The story of how one book saved me while another nearly killed Conner began, appropriately enough, in a bookstore – to be more precise, at Borders in Bloomington, Indiana, where I saw a poster with Conner’s picture on it. By then, I had nearly forgotten Conner. I had figured I was done with books.”

The Salinger Contract
By Adam Langer

Ever since the demise of the literary magazine Adam Langer worked at he’s been a stay-at-home dad trying to work on his next book. And, yes, the main character shares the name with the author which is something that normally bugs me a lot but in this case it totally worked.

Anyway, one day while at a Borders Bookstore Adam sees that Conner Joyce, a writer he once interviewed, is doing a book signing but rather than it being a literary crush with many fans the once up-and-coming writer only has a handful of members in the audience. Adam is about to walk off when Conner recognizes him and before he knows it he is drawn into uneasy friendship.

Conner explains that he is involved in something so big but that he can’t let anyone know. Slowly the details emerge and Adam learns that Conner has entered a most unusual book contract. He is to write a book for one person. A book so great, a book that will bring him so much money to end all his money woes, but it will only be read by one man.

As Conner recounts his story, it all seems so preposterous to Adam but it would certainly explain some literary mysteries like why do some writers only write one great book and why do some writers despite what they write rise to the top?

I really enjoyed this book. It had a bit of everything from observations on the world of book publishing, the demise of bookstores and even a bit on the world of academia. I particularly liked one character who was such an over-the-top author that I couldn’t help but laugh. Another highlight was that it was so fun to revisit Borders even if it was just through the pages of a book. For fans of books about books you should check this one out.

Source: Advance Review Copy