Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein

254 Pages
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Open Road Media Sci Fi & Fantasy
Release Date: October 21, 2014

Fiction, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Mystical

The Order of the Labyrinth was a great group founded around the turn of the century, They were people capable of performing real magic. Suddenly the group disappeared. Andrew Dodd, a reporter in Oakland California was one of the last people to meeting with the group and interview them. The day after the interview, he finds his notes are gone and he has no memory of the meeting.

It is now sixty years later and Molly is looking into her family. She finds it hard to believe it is just her and her great aunt left of her family. She has no knowledge of the Order of the Labyrinth. She finds a scrapbook with photos which leads her to search the rest of her family. While secrets begin to unfold and be shared with Molly, her outlook on life changes.

The book has a steady pace, the characters are developed, and it is written in the third person point of view. Molly’s character grows as she learns about her family’s history. If you like stories about carnival or circus life, you may enjoy reading this book.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Investigating her family history, Molly slips into a world of magic
Backstage at a vaudeville in Oakland, California, a reporter sits down for an interview with Callan Allalie, patriarch of a family of traveling magicians. As the journalist asks his questions, Callan’s sisters dazzle him with tricks too delicate for the stage. The night quickly whirls out of control as all manner of untold magic warps the writer’s mind, and the next morning, he can’t be sure that he witnessed it at all.
Sixty years later, a private detective confronts Molly, the last descendent of the Allalie clan, to ask questions about one of Callan’s sisters, who seemed to vanish after the performance in Oakland. As Molly delves into the mysteries of the Allalies, she discovers a connection to a shadowy organization of nineteenth-century mystics—and a family secret that will change the way she looks at the world forever.

Very hard to write a review for this as it left me in two minds - did I like this or not? And I am still truly unable to answer that...

The biggest problem was the opposing nature of some of the elements - a fascinating family history that was really interesting to read, but there is no development of the current characters and I felt no real interest in whether Molly solved the mystery or not.
About 1/3 of this story was made up of pages from books that were in the story - but that was the most interesting part. The rest of the "mystery" was telegraphed and didn't really hold me in the story for long periods of time.
The 'labyrinth' in the title made the story sound like it could be full of intrigue and dead-ends - and then the labyrinth was completely under-used and it felt like "what is going on"?

However, this is a pretty short novel (about 200 pages) and, if you can suspend your disbelief for that long, it is actually worth the read.


Paul
ARH