Archive for October 10, 2010
THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN by Helen Grant
Even in these dramatic opening lines, British author Grant’s first novel, THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN, has a beguiling, self-absorbed, coming-of-age tone well suited to its appealing 10-year-old narrator, Pia Kolvenbach. Pia is actually recalling these events from young adulthood, seven years later; a distance that allows a certain wry humor in her approach to her younger self, while retaining the immediacy of her traumatic experiences.
Daughter of an English mother and German father, Pia has enjoyed an uneventful childhood in the tiny, ancient, comfortably hidebound town of Bad Munstereifel. This comes to an abrupt end when her grandmother accidentally sets herself on fire lighting the last Advent candle at the family celebration the Sunday before Christmas.
October 10, 2010
Tags: missing children, Mystery, Speculative (Beyond Reality) Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Debut Novel, Germany, Mystery/Suspense, Small Town 
No Comments
