Customer Reviews

Five Mile House: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

How far would you go to protect your children? Would you kill for them? That's the question that I was left with after zipping through this intelligent, well-written, spooky, thrill ride of a book. Karen Novak has sent her main character, Leslie Stone, on a hero's quest involving a search for a sacred manuscript. The biggest part of the quest is Leslie's attempt to come to terms with her who she is and what she has done. You see, Leslie Stone is a detective, and, as the book opens, she has been sent to investigate the murder of yet another child, a four-year old girl who reminds her way too much of her own four-year old daughter. Before the end of the day, the suspect in this awful crime will be dead at Leslie's hands. Her life in shambles after serving her sentence, Leslie and her family move out to the country where her husband has gotten a job restoring an old mansion. This mansion, is, of course, haunted. But this is no ordinary ghost; Five Mile House is inhabited by a spirit who is as troubled as Leslie. This spirit, a woman, supposedly killed all of her children and then killed herself. Ever the detective, Leslie wonders if the legend covers up a grisly crime, and she sets out to investigate. There is a ton of stuff to talk about in this book, but I'm afraid I've come close to revealing too much already. I would highly recommend it.

This is a well crafted and beautifully written debut novel that is impressive. A modern day ghost story with Gothic underpinnings, it is a page turner, full of suspense and mystery. It is an intelligent ghost story that is as ephemeral, as it is gripping.

The story revolves around a married female detective, Leslie Stone, who lives with her husband, Greg, and her two young daughters, Molly and Emma. One morning, Leslie goes to work on a particularly brutal child homicide. A perpetrator is in custody, and when Leslie goes to interview him, she snaps and metes out a form of vigilante justice that is final and irrevocable. Arrested, charged with murder, and tried, she is found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Confined for months to a mental hospital, she is finally released.

Her husband, a building contractor, having anticipated the notoriety attendant with is wife's release, gets a job that enables them to move to a new place and get a fresh start, or so he thinks. They move to the small New England town of Wellington, where he is able to obtain his dream job, the restoration of an unusual house named Five Mile House. The catch here is that Five Mile House has had its own share of notoriety. A century ago, a woman, Eleanor Bly, killed her children, then herself in that house. Moreover, it is located in a town riddled with witches, adherents to the ancient Wiccan religion.

Leslie, a detective down to her very soul, soon discovers that she is Eleanor Bly's doppelganger, and that the dream job her husband got was not by chance. Moreover, she senses that there is something about the house that is evil. The past soon begins to collide with the present, as Eleanor reaches out to Leslie to try and set the record straight about what really happened at Five Mile House all those years ago. What she reveals, bit by bit, will keep the reader turning the pages.

It is only at the end that the auther stumbles a bit, as she tries to bring closure to her story. It is still, however, a debut novel to remember.

I enjoyed reading Karen Novak's debut novel, and I am interested in reading more of her work. That said, "Five Mile House" is a quick engaging read, but leaves much to be desired. The supernatural connection between the main character and the narrator never becomes clear, and the plot has way too many holes and is a bit too outlandish for easy acceptance. I don't want to beat this horse to death as there are already so many reviews, so let me just leave you my suggestion: check the book out at the library before you buy. It's likable, but not one I'd read again.

The main ideas behind _Five Mile House_ really interested me: a ghostly narrator, a haunted and haunting house, a mother/cop whose job became too much for her . . . These are excellent beginnings, and the first several chapters are very strong. But the book ends weakly: many important questions are not answered, many important happenings are not adequately explained, and at the end the characters are dismissed. (My lack of specificity here is deliberate; I don't want to ruin the book for anyone who may wish to read it.) The switching between Eleanor's past and Leslie's present is a wonderful technique, similar to those used in many horror/thriller/mystery novels, but the switches need to be more smoothly written, with cues to the reader that a switch is happening (as happens in _Dracula_, say, or _The Woman in White_, two books that pioneered this technique). It's certainly worth a read, however, and I will admit that the story was good enough that I wanted the questions answered, even though they were not.

Five Mile House, a story within a story, hooked my interest from page one and sustained it until the end. Karen Novak is a skilled writer who knows how to breathe life into characters via dialogue, description, and ambience. It is interesting to note that, unlike most literary apparitions and spirits, this "ghost" doesn't know her own mind, her intentions evolving with the rest of the action. The plot, revolving around 2 parallel lives separated by 100 years but linked by themes of guilt, retribution, manipulation, and possible madness, is well conceived, but there are some problems with its execution. Confusion remains about the motivation of the antagonists and the reality of the secret, perhaps because, as some other reviewers have suggested, a sequel is in the works. Relationships in this book are also somewhat muddily defined and iffy. Were it not for these flaws, I would have rated Five Mile a four or maybe even a five. Definitely thought provoking and rather noir in a modern way.

Entertaining novel about a female police officer, Leslie, who snaps one day at work and shoots a man accused of murdering a child. After a brief stay in a psychiatric hospital, she, her husband, and her two small children decide to move to a small town in New England, where her husband has been offered a job renovating an old mansion. The mansion has a history -- it's said that Eleanor Bly murdered her children and then committed suicide there over 100 years ago. Leslie is shocked to discover she looks just like Eleanor and even more shocked when she begins to discover the truth about why her family was asked to move there. The truth about what happened at the Bly house starts to come out, bit by bit. The story is narrated by the ghost of Eleanor Bly, who has known Leslie was coming and is desperate to help her avoid the same fate. This was a spooky novel, well-written and very engrossing. Recommended!

The thing I liked the best about this book is that it was not the typical "haunted house" story. It really is more of a detective story, with the main character in the present pursuing the truth surrounding a 100 year old multiple murder and suicide. The narration by Eleanor, the ghost who is trapped in Five Mile House was a nice twist from the normal "ghost story." Leslie Stone, the main character of this novel, has an unexplained connection with Eleanor Bly, who committed murder and suicide 100 years before. That connection was never fully explained.

I found the storyline of an entire town filled with practicing wiccans a bit far-fetched, as was the premise that Leslie's husband would bring her to this place after she has been through an experience which has made her doubt her sanity. The reason [I won't give the plot away] for Leslie's temporary insanity leaves one to believe that her husband is either an idiot or completely insensitive to bring her to Wellington, the fictional town where Five Mile House is located.

As Leslie learns that her children are in danger, she is called to make a decision that on the surface proves her unconditional love for her children. Then the last page of the book leaves the reader feeling that certainly Leslie cannot truly love her children based on the choice she makes.

Her relationships with her husband and her lover are both bizarre and devoid of communication, and that is a bit disappointing.

Eleanor's account of how her children really died and the horrific events that led up to their deaths was truly heartwrenching, even if the reason for all of the diabolical scheming to drive her to her course of action was "over the top."

Overall, this was an interesting book, and it was entertaining, but when I finished the novel, I had a completely different feeling about Leslie Stone than I had through the entire novel.

I suppose it is afterall, not a fairytale, therefore one should not expect a fairytale ending.

I give it 3 stars because the plot was interesting and suspensful, you definitely get caught in the story , as the narrative is captivating. The flaw is toward the end.

Mind you, I rarely get this disappointed in a book that shows such great potential, but unfortunately this one disapointed me. Many lose ends, many things aren't apropriately explained, and overall, it left a lot to be desired.

I really feel that I could read another book from this author because I believe people improve with time, and this is her first novel, after all. But one of the things that keep me from reading the rest of the series, is the main character. I don't know about the rest of you, but I found impossible to like or sympathize with Leslie. She's selfish, careless with her children, emotinally cold with both her kids and her husband, and not even a little bit remorseful about the adultery. It's not like she had an uncaring husband! He was kind, put up with a lot of her rudeness and insanity, and yet she acted as if he deserved it.

It's not entirely bad, but it certainly isn't the best book I've read.

Unlike the other readers above, I found the plot-line here confusing and the characters' motivations unclear. Many of the suspenseful complications introduced during the story were NEVER cleared up (what about the answer to little Amy's question, 'is he here?", for example?), making this story ultimately unsatisfying. Hopefully Novak's next will focus less on atmosphere and more on the demands of a compelling, complete mystery. She DOES write well.

Karen Novack's debut is breath-stealingly atmospheric and
rife with suspense.
Her protangonist, Leslie Stone, is one heck of a complicated character. She is very far from perfect. A few of her choices should probably make her unlikable, but somehow Novack imbues her with a certain je ne sais quoi, and you can empathise with her. To a point. This is fiction, but leaving her kids, age 10 and 5 to play alone at a lake, bothered me.
A homicide detective who has seen one too many heinous crimes, she loses her senses and kills a suspected criminal, when the voice of the child victim whispers to her.
I won't reveal more than that.
Her husband takes her and the kids to an isolated and rather weird town.
Where he is to work on a gothic house, with a history of
pain and sadness.
In the town of Wellington, Leslie and family meet all kinds of unusual souls.
Drawn into a spooky and complicated conspiracy; will Leslie's discoveries be believed or scoffed at. Can she save her children. Or will her troubled past condemn her and her family to a bleak future.
Karen Novack weaves a rich thread of prose into a wonderfully
entertaining novel.
I will be buying the rest of the series.