Rotterham Home is a hospice for teens with a variety of terminal illnesses. One small group, consisting of Ilonka, Anya, Sandra, Kevin, and Spence, gets together every night at midnight to tell stories. Spence's stories always feature some form of mass murder, Anya's story has more of a supernatural bent, Kevin's is a multi-part story about an angel who becomes a mortal out of love for a young woman. Ilonka, meanwhile, always tells stories based on her memories of her past lives. Although she says she's never met anyone in this life that she's known in her past lives, that's a lie - she recognizes Kevin as someone she's met and loved in all or most of her past lives. Unfortunately, Kevin is currently dating a pretty and healthy cheerleader.

Almost every member of the group has a secret gnawing at them, something they must deal with as best they can in the little time they have.

I had forgotten how much mysticism was in some of Christopher Pike's books. This particular one had a LOT. Ilonka had repeated dreams of sitting at the feet of some guy she called the Master, who philosophized at her and tried to get her to stop looking at the past or longing for the future and instead focus on the present. Weirdly, her reincarnations resulted in her being both the Master's mother and his first disciple. The two past lives readers got to see the most of took place in ancient India and ancient Egypt (sort of). Then there was Kevin's angel main character, Sandra's evangelical upbringing, and lots of mentions of God.

Speaking of Sandra, evangelical readers would probably be annoyed by this book, since she comes across as the least likeable and most hypocritical character. Oddly, she was also the only character to find Spence's stories disturbing. Considering Pike's usual inclusion of murder and/or horror in his books, I initially thought Spence's stories were going to lead up to some kind of murder mystery, but that wasn't exactly the case. (There was a tiny bit of mystery, but it was more of a minor detail than anything.)

I'm not really sure what else to say about this. The one bit where Ilonka had a bunch of magic-filled dreams of past lives was weird, and the far-future ending felt weak and tacked on. This was a bit of an "issue" book, dealing directly with subjects like teenage sexuality,

, in addition to the more obvious issues of death, serious illness, and mortality. (And yes,

All in all, this wasn't the book I expected it to be and wasn't one of my better Pike rereads, but it wasn't bad. Just don't let the cover trick you into thinking it's horror, or you'll be terribly disappointed.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

THE MYSTICS OF MILE END

Sigal Samuel

Paperback; 320 pages

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (October 13, 2015)

• ISBN-10: 0062412175
• ISBN-13: 978-0062412171
• also on Kindle

It took a while to "get into" this book. Set in Montreal, Canada in a Jewish neighborhood, the story follows a widowed father with his 2 children as the each deal with what being Jewish means to them.

Even with my slow start, I found myself liking the characters more and more. Sigal Samuel's writing style flows well as she tells first the son's story, then the father, and finally bringing everything and everyone together in the daughter's section. Even the neighbors and friends are developed well. A lot of questions, some answers, and an intimate look at each of the major characters as they look for the meaning in their lives.

“But the heaviest things, I think, are the secrets. They can drown you if you let them.”
― Ally Carter

“Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank — but that’s not the same thing.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and other stories

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
― P.T. Barnum

Tragedy and loss are sounds. The slip of waves across rock. The cry of a loon across a dark lake. The patter of rain against midnight windows.

They are water, streaming from here to there, giving life. And taking it away.

His mother, Paulina, circus performer, fortune-teller, magician’s assistant, and mermaid, walked into the water when he was seven. His father soon followed, destroyed by grief. And only Simon, and his baby sister Enola, remain. Simon, a lonely young librarian, who clings to the home he grew up in, which itself clings desperately to the edge of the cliff above the sea, falling to wrack and ruin, a mere memory, a ghost of the warm family home it once was. Simon, who lives alone while his sister, like her mother before her, lives the life of the circus, the carnival, reading the fortunes of the lonely, the lovelorn, the lost.

But then, the book arrives. And time begins to waver, back and forth through time, the past melding with the present through the words of yet another “walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”* A poor player indeed, who struts and frets across a traveling carnival stage. There is magic here. Magic and pain and loss and death.

And drowning.
Always drowning.

Simon’s tale reaches back, back to Hermelius H. Peabody’s Portable Magic and Miracles Traveling Show. Hermelius H. Peabody, self-proclaimed visionary in entertainment and education. Hermelius H. Peabody, who one day comes upon a real Wild Boy – a Wild Boy who was left in the woods to die, and instead lives – lives, and learns to listen to the water. Learns to vanish.

“The Book of Speculation” is a small miracle. History and mystery, mysticism and the water. Always, always the water. A lost book, a lost soul. A lost history found, beliefs crumpled.

And the water sings, its quiet song of death.

I received “The Book of Speculation” from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.

Highly recommended.

    Shakespeare, Hamlet

A Book of God's Love by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen is a short book discussing spiritual topics such as unconditional love, forgiveness, and others. Some parts of the book definitely resonated with me more than others, but I didn't find it too hard to take the wisdom that was meaningful to me and discard the rest. Even when reading parts of the book that I didn't particularly resonate with, I still felt a sense of peace when reading it. One thing I particularly liked about the book was the theme that one should forever be a student and never stop learning and questioning the world around us. I think that people who have more traditional spiritual beliefs would get even more out of this book than I did.

Awakening: A Sufi Experience by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan gives a good overview of the beliefs and ideals of Sufism. Admittedly there was some material that was over my head, but a surprising amount of what I read was familiar to me. This is because Sufism draws from many different religions and cultures and there were concepts discussed in this book that closely resembled things I had learned when studying new age spirituality. There is a lot of emphasis on meditation in this book and it describes many different meditation and breathing exercises. Some of these I was already familiar with, but many of them were new to me. One thing that I thought was really cool about this book is that scientific principles are often used to help explain metaphysical and spiritual concepts which certainly made them easier for me to understand. I thought this was an excellent book and I'd highly recommend it to anyone new to the subject. I really enjoyed reading it and just the act of reading this book helped me to feel more peaceful.