The Book of Speculation

The Book of Speculation

Written By: Erika Swyler

Published By: St. Martin’s Press

Read: May 14-23, 2015

Rating: 5 stars

You can buy this book here.

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Goodreads Synopsis

Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a bluff that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards and seldom calls.

On a day in late June, Simon receives a mysterious package from an antiquarian bookseller. The book tells the story of Amos and Evangeline, doomed lovers who lived and worked in a traveling circus more than two hundred years ago. The paper crackles with age as Simon turns the yellowed pages filled with notes, sketches, and whimsical flourishes, and his best friend and fellow librarian, Alice, looks on in increasing alarm. Why does his grandmother’s name, Verona Bonn, appear in this book? Why do so many women in his family drown on July 24? Could there possibly be some kind of curse on his family, and could Enola, who has suddenly turned up at home for the first time in six years, risk the same fate in just a few weeks? In order to save her–and perhaps himself–Simon must try urgently to decode his family history while moving on from the past.

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I received this book from Goodreads First Reads.

I think it is impossible to pick a favorite book, there are just so many books that I love. If I was somehow forced to choose, this would obviously have to be some sort of life or death type of situation, this book would definitely be in my top three.

This is Erika Swyler’s first novel and I will absolutely be following her career and reading anything and everything that she writes.

The Book of Speculation was such a beautiful book. The writing was magical and haunting and absolutely perfect.

…sharing fates and futures, like ink bleeding down a wet page- the ruined end of a book.

The characters were so well though out. They were dark and real.

He breathed otherness, and a secret light burned inside him, spilling out when he spoke.

The imagery was so vivid and wonderful.

When the need for air came hard like a hunger she opened her mouth. It filled with sand and ocean. Inside she became as much water as out.

I loved this book from the first page until the last. This will be one of those books that I will read over and over and recommend to anybody who will listen. I can not stress enough how much I loved this book.

2015 Reading Challenge- a book by a female author

Recommended for Fans of: Fiction, Magical Realism and Fantasy

Suggested to Read Next:  The Ocean at the End of the Lane