I really enjoyed this author's voice as much as I enjoyed the story itself. It's a little bit reminiscent of Stephen King (the premise really reminded me of Needful Things) - but it's a unique story all on it's own. Not just a creepy horror story, it's got a social message as well. Using the history of The Old South and placing the characters at the dawn of the modern era (post WWI) really allows the reader to feel and understand the conflicts and struggles the characters face in their every day lives - they are trying to get on with a normal life when the past is literally buried and boiling underneath them. This was a really interesting, engaging read.

Interesting fascinating book. Sad but...hopeful too

In the wake of WWI, Ellsworth Newberry is grieving for his wife and the life they could have had together. All he wants is to be left alone. But when a strange chapel is unearthed in the woods, Ellsworth may be the only one who can lead his community in a fight against an unknown, unseen enemy. Part Christian fiction, part horror, part historical fiction, All Things Bright and Strange starts off strong, but gets lost along the way.

When I think of this book, the word atmospheric comes to mind. I felt transported to Bellhaven each time I picked it up. The people there are essentially good, but some bad things have happened to them, leaving them altered and slightly off. The story of Bellhaven builds slowly but isn't boring as a consequence. It's a comfortable, small town kind of pace that suits the story. I enjoyed it and plan to read more from the author.

I was given a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is a story about Ellsworth who returns home after losing his wife and being injured in the war. He's coping only just and with a new neighbor moving in and longtime one growing old, something starts happening in the woods. There is a church hidden deep among the trees, visiting it grants peace of mind and brightened spirits, but is it as benevolent as it seems? Strange things start happening around town, people are choosing sides, and Ellsworth is one of the few with a clear enough mind to act.

I have some mixed feelings about this book and my review will contain minor spoilers.

I enjoyed the style and the pacing, it had a very personal feel to it. When I sat down to read the book I finished it in one day, it really pulled me in and kept me engaged. Even though there were a lot of characters I could distinguish them all from each other, although I interposed Raphael and Gabriel often enough I still knew who they individually were. That's probably my dyslexia more than anything!

I really enjoyed Ellsworth and I didn't think I would from the first few chapters. He has a lot of depth and compassion to him. To see his transformation from disabled and suicidal to a person of conviction and determination was fantastic. Eliza, ohgosh I loved the chapter with her diary, the concept of what she was doing and how, it grabbed my imagination.

I really, really appreciated how race wasn't shied away from, which worried me in the first chapter where they were saying it was a special town that doesn't see race. I thought it was going to be brushed off as no big deal when the time period especially would say otherwise. It was later talked about in a very real and serious way and the inclusion of the KKK was horrific but again, appreciated.

I have two, two and a half points that sort of took me away from the story.

The first being when they were talking about their names and how they were named after the archangels and essentially protectors of the town. It's really neat idea and has great symbolism. My issue was that as they were talking I was picking up on it and then flat out, point blank, let me make you a bulletpoint list, one of the characters says exactly that. It was kind of slapped in the reader's face when it didn't need to be.

And in that same vein, America Ma, while I thought was an interesting concept, made things too easy. Most the time she was unknown and mysterious, a voice, a person, watching over everyone, seeing everyone, whispering words in the night. But then, ahhh, but then when there was an important plot point that needed to happen or be found out, someone would blurt out all the answers and say 'America Ma told me' and that was that. It felt too easy and I hate to use this term because I know how difficult it is to write a book, but it felt like lazy writing. Which I'm certain it wasn't, it just left me feeling let down.

And lastly there was the ending. I didn't hate it, but I was a little... confused? Maybe. The sword suddenly and the gunfight and what happened to Ellsworth. It made me feel like there were a certain number of pages and everything had to be squished into that. I sort of wanted more. And maybe that's not really a flaw of the book. But it made me feel like there was all this potential and it only got to like 80% In the end, the town wasn't able to choose, Ellsworth picked their path for them and I suppose that made me feel like most the town learned nothing from what had happened with the church.

There was a lot about race, religion, and addiction and I feel like the message could have been pushed just a bit further to really leave an impact. But I mean, it's been a few days and I'm still thinking about it, it'll probably stay with me for a while.

Going into this book, I wasn’t quite sure what it was truly about. The summary seemed intriguing, and now having read it, the summary tells you what happens in the book. Personally, this probably isn’t a book I’ll pick up again. For me, it was a tad anti-climatic and the Christian themes were evident and semi-well-written.

This book takes place in 1920’s South Carolina and follows Ellsworth Newberry. Ellsworth is a guy in his 20’s who has just come back from WWI without his best friend and his leg and returns to the town where he grew up but also where he lost his wife, Eliza. Ellsworth, while trying to figure out some way to live is still seen as the undeclared town leader. Everyone looks up to him. After an incident in the woods, Raphael, the boy his wife died trying to save, brings him to this chapel in the woods where he hears his wife’s voice and then everything starts to go downhill from there that ends in a fight between good and evil; pieces on a chessboard that have been moved and put in place in order that evil may win. But in the end, good prevails.

The main thing I liked about this book was the image of what the town was. In the beginning, and again, in the end, the town and the people in it were wonderfully written. It held the idea of being different from the other towns around it because of the inclusion of everyone. The first picture that you get is everyone in the town hall dancing and having fun, regardless of their religion or race. I LOVED that. For me, it reinforced the idea of what true fellowship is supposed to be. On Wednesday nights, the youth group I volunteer at are going through a series that just went over the inclusiveness of Heaven and how it was meant to be multi-ethnic, not segregated. This scene again, reinforced that idea for me before it all was torn to shreds.

All throughout the book, there was this idea of evil showing itself as good; looking nice until you get to the layer underneath. From the beginning, you can tell there’s something off about this “chapel” in the woods. But nothing is really certain until about 75% through and then you hit the point of realizing that it’s more than it seems. There were lots of Christian themes and references that were obvious and some that were hidden and meant to be thought about.

For me, this book at times was a bit confusing, and to enjoy it fully, you might need to have some basis or knowledge of Christianity. If you’ve read anything by Ted Dekker or Frank Peretti, you’ll definitely like this book.

It was honestly very difficult to give this book a 2.5star rating because it started from a solid 5 yet somehow things went wrong along the way.

The premise is very intriguing; a mysterious chapel in the woods lures people in from the nearby town with making them able to hear the voices of their dead loved ones. Yet as people go more and more they start to change for the worse so we can suspect the working of some kind of evil.

There are a diverse set of characters in the novel, the most outstanding being a WW I. veteran named Ellsworth who always takes matters in his hand and the town folk look at him as a leader. We get to know his friends, the widow of his best friend, a strange black boy, a mysterious man who arrives to take over the mansion on the hill and a whole bunch of other characters. This is one of the problems of the book, with its 300 something pages it is too short to carry so much characters. We barely get to know them.

Markert delivers a unique writing style and eerie mood till the end of the first half of the book building up a truly interesting history the second part falls short of delivering clever answers. I was disappointed to find a heap of cliche in the end and felt like a good opportunity has been wasted.

Overall it's a nicely written book that fails to live up to expectations after a promise of a good story. I kept feeling like it wasn't worth the hassle to drag me through so much buildup and so many characters to find a cringe worthy ending.

Additionally I never got to find out the intention behind the title.

* I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review *

Magical realism can kind of be a hit or miss for me depending on how the elements are developed, but I really like how James Markert incorporates them into his stories. All Things Bright And Strange is another example of how I can actually really enjoy magical realism when it’s done right. The story starts out as a typical historical fiction read mostly set in the years after WWI. The main character, Ellsworth, is a WWI veteran along with several other characters, while others have lost someone during the war. I think this is probably my favorite element and the after effects of the war are very well described in the different veterans. A very important topic as well since there isn’t enough awareness when it comes to what veterans are going through! Grumpy Ellsworth really grows on you and he even reminded me a bit of Fredrik Backman‘s Ove (HUGE compliment!). The characters in general are well developed and each plays its role in the events in Bellhaven. Some of their names even have special meanings… But that is something for you to discover as you are reading it to avoid spoiling surprises. The magical elements mix quite nicely with the historical fiction parts, and the author did a great job creating the right atmosphere for the time period. And the descriptions of the chapel in the woods are wonderful. BUT. There was way too much religious talk to my taste, and All Things Bright And Strange should be classified as Christian fiction. True, a lot of different religions are making their appearance in the story, creating diversity, but I simply feel there was too much religious talking going on and some of it sounded almost like preaching. Which is why I ended up enjoying this one less than What Blooms From Dust, but if you don’t mind a healthy dose of religion in your story, you will enjoy it even better than I did. The descriptions of the strange things that are happening in Bellhaven are simply magical.

I honestly have tried to read this book three times. I get about halfway and I just realize I do not understand really what is going on. The plot of the story is so very intriguing, but I just cannot finish it without understanding.

All Things Bright and Strange and interesting. The language in it is a little hard to figure out at times but when you do you appreciate it. The Christianity in this book is good -what I look for - but there were some things in it I wasn't too taken with. There is a suspenseful aspect to this story and you will love it. You also have the main character walking the line of will he or won't he use that gun he keeps with him. Interesting books.

I should not have asked for this book. But I've learned my lesson - i don't enjoy adult fiction. I like historical fiction with a strong basis in history, not adult fiction set in a different time period. And again, I don't enjoy mystery so I should NOT have tried to read this. Halfway through, I was bored and too weary to continue reading.

I'm not going to try to knock out a synopsis of this book. There's a lot, and it's both complicated and very simple; there are holes in the plot, and predictability, but also genuine creepy horror elements and interesting characterization.

Note: If you're a Yankee like myself, it may help you in reading this book to know that Hoppin’ John is a dish made with black-eyed peas, smoked ham, and rice. Sounds good. Now that you know the details, you might end up very very hungry by the end of the story, because one character is famous for her Hoppin' John, and makes it a lot.

There's also a lot of alcohol flowing through this book, Prohibition or no Prohibition. The characters have all had to live through WWI, after all, either on the home front or the actual front, and none of the soldiers came back unscathed. It's realistic, and well-told, the alcoholism and the fight against it, or the surrender to it.

My complaint about this aspect of the book is the language used about it. "You’ve been dipping the bill in too much giggle juice"… Over and over, in deadly serious contexts, with no levity whatever, characters referred to booze as "giggle juice". I have no idea how dialectically accurate it was – but I found it irritating, especially in light of all the other little regional euphemisms that kept cropping up – "jingle-brained" was one that was perhaps over-used. When a woman's "getaway sticks" were referred to, it took me a couple of pages to figure out that that meant "legs". And the desire to go up to someone and "drygulch him in the noodle", while not as puzzling, still made me go "huh?". Even the more common language felt out of place; I don't know if the author was working to avoid curse words, but in at least one place a character was speaking angrily about something he had every reason to be angry about, but still said "darn".

So, basically, the language drove me a bit crazy (and that's not even including the one character who adopted a pseudo- manner of speaking which looked like nothing I've ever seen before). But I have to say what was said was memorable. There are images from this book that will stay with me for a while – beautiful and wondrous things, like a flock of cardinals in the form of a man, and a town with all of the trees and flowers blooming at once … and terrible, unsettling things, like a deer ramming its head into a tree, over and over, and like people – and animals – walking backwards … that made the hair stand up on my arms just typing that out.

But, as mentioned, there was a sort of tedious predictability to it all. I kept hoping the plot would take a turn and do something amazing – but while the climax of the story was overall satisfying, it could have been so much more. Everything felt like it was building up to something huge and heart-rending … and I was just left a bit flat. I felt like there were major missed opportunities.

But I finally found out why live oaks are called that: "That’s ’cause they hold on to their leaves nearly all year like an evergreen." Hey, thanks.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

Ellsworth Newberry returns from World War 1 disabled and traumatised. He hides away in his cabin in the small town of Bellhaven, South Carolina where he is visited by equally war damaged friends with whom he drinks excessively and thinks of killing himself. When they find a mysterious chapel in the woods strange, supernatural things start to happen in the town.

I found this book did not hold my attention and I had difficulty staying focused and just did not enjoy the story line at all.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book.

"It was as good a day to die as any. But first Ellsworth Newberry would have his morning cup of joe."

Bellhaven, South Carolina. 1920. Ellsworth Newberry lost a leg in World War I, but that wasn't all he lost. He has lost his will to live. His wife is dead, as is their stillborn infant and he just sees no valid reason to live. But somehow he always stops before eating a bullet.

Ellsworth realizes slowly that things are changing in his small hometown of Bellhaven, SC. For as long as he can remember, no one has ever dared go beyond the trees painted yellow in the woods. Too much darkness lurked there. Even evil, everyone said.

In those deep woods there is a mysterious chapel with a 'healing floor'. Everyone who dares venture that far comes back at peace, seemingly healed of whatever was bothering them. They hear things that soothe their souls. Soon, they begin to crave more trips to the woods and the chapel, with the special clearing where an abundance of birds live and everything is always in bloom.

Soon, though, Ellsworth notices, these very people are turning on each other, intent on harming those who have been their friends for years. It's the woods and the chapel, but no one wants to hear that and continue their visits to the 'healing floor'. The natural and the supernatural mingle in the woods and the town begins to fall apart.

Ellsworth soon realizes he must forget his suicide attempts and overcome his fears to help his town face the evil in the woods.

This book is indeed 'strange' as the title says. But it is captivating and completely draws the reader in. I believe this book would make a wonderful movie. The author has crafted characters that are not only believable but likeable and his plot is amazing. I recommend this one.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers. All opinions stated here are my own.

With a stunning plot and a really ethereal feel to the writing, All Things Bright and Strange really aces it in the writing aspect. The first thing that struck me as interesting about the book was that it really made me understand the effect of war on people, as it is set in a time of wars. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a monster who doesn’t know how horrific war is. Its just that the book made it seem so real and so painful and I really did sympathize with the war veterans described in the book. As for the supernatural side, I did find the description of the conflict between the religious leaders of the town slightly strange, but other than that the descriptions of the “magical chapel” and its effect on the town were magnificent. The whole concept of a town driven to madness because of “supernatural occurrences” was fantastically done.

I feel like in a year or two I will re-read this book and find so much that I missed with this go-round.
It made me feel like Stephen King and Ray Bradbury had a book baby. It is part historical fiction (the main character returns from WW I to loss and a town that wants him to lead), part fantasy (a church in the woods that 'lets' the characters talk with deceased loved ones, part religiouos, and part horror in a odd way. I found myself pondering quite a bit about life and how we see it as I read.
I want to say more but I need to read it again.

James Markert is a new author to me....an interesting read...full of mystery and redemption. Still pondering this book...I have shared it w/ my reading friends.

I went into this novel with absolutely no idea on how I would feel about it. I emerged from it thinking that it was quite an interesting read.

I really liked the premise of this book and the way events unfolded in this town. The story is told entirely from Ellsworth's point of view, and he is quite a character. I think the author tries really hard to make him complex, but at times, it was a bit forced. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by Ellsworth and really liked him. There were many different characters who were introduced to the story, and it could be quite confusing to keep them all straight. However, all of the characters had backstories and vices that helped the reader make a connection with them. I did think that everyone's constant positive regard for Ellsworth was a tad overbearing, but it makes sense in terms of the story. 

I really liked the way that the story progressed. We start off with the emergence of this chapel, which has always been present, yet the people of this town have been unaware of it. But once they become aware, they cannot help but visit, enticed by the messages it gives them. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that this chapel is not a blessing - rather, it is curse. The frenzy that developed throughout this story was fantastic, and I really enjoyed every minute of the book.... until we got to the final climax. That's when I felt disappointment. After all this amazing build up and tension and intrigue, the climax felt lackluster. 

Even though the ending was not as great as I had hoped, the story itself was interesting and I enjoyed most of it. I wasn't expecting it to make references to faith (totally missed out that it was labelled as Christian fiction) but the author made it work in the story. I would give this a 3/5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

DNF 55%, I tried, I really, really tried...There were enough random moments of pull/excitement that I tried to plow through the slower parts but at half of the way through I was still struggling. It started off very slow and even though I left it and tried to pick it back up several times I came to terms that this book was simply just not for me. I did appreciate the writing and the setting but the storyline itself was choppy with so many characters and their backstories.

I was expecting to love this book but at the end of the day I wasn't feeling it. The premise of a chapel in the woods with healing powers that in turn eventually causes people to yield their darkest selves was an intriguing premise, but for me the execution of that premise just didn't hold me. I do believe other readers (as reviews show) will enjoy it but I appreciate the opportunity to read in exchange for an unbiased review.

DNF at 55%. 3 Stars.

I highly enjoyed this read! Not only is it based it South Carolina and I am a South Carolinian, it was very mysterious and sinister! I loved the way the characters interacted with each other and the overall characterisation. The only thing I wish was a tad different was it was slow in the beginning. I loved the mixed elements of this story as well. The mystery was highly enjoyable, making this book a suspenseful ride I am glad I didn’t miss out on!