But I do want to know how time--and books!--go by so fast... Has it really been four years?
LISA ALBER: Thanks for inviting me today, Debs! A funny thing happened on the way to writing this blog post. I decided to refresh my memory about my previous guest posts here on Jungle Reds and came upon a post that I’d forgotten I’d written. My very first guest post anywhere, as a matter of fact, back in 2013. It’s a post about Coffee Toffee Pie (+recipe!) and my deceased dad—a kind of loaded topic. Not the pie, which was the reason Lucy asked me to post in the first place (everyone loves pie, am I right or am I wrong?), but the dad bits.
Fast forward four years, and I can’t help but think about how father-daughter (and some son) relationships figure big in my novels. It’s a theme I keep mining, keep wanting to explore.
In Path Into Darkness, my third novel set in Ireland, one of my two main series characters, DS Danny Ahern, balances being a single father, managing his comatose wife’s medical ups-and-downs, and investigating the murder of one of his pub mates, Elder Joe. Meanwhile, my other protagonist, Californian Merrit, is still trying to maneuver around her relationship with her father, Liam, at the same time she gets pulled into Danny’s investigation.
Danny and Merrit find themselves circling ever closer to the darkness at the heart of the ultimate father-daughter relationship: mentally fragile Nathan Tate and beautiful, buoyant Zoe. This relationship is a doozy! And it could be that Nathan is somehow implicated in Elder Joe’s murder, or it could be that something else is going on altogether. (I hope you’re intrigued!)
So, fathers and their children—the theme that keeps on giving!
I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately because I visited with his sisters in Chicago at the beginning of the month. I hadn’t seen them in decades. At one point, Aunt Bernie was preparing appetizers while I drank wine (what’s new?), and I had this moment of dislocation. Her mannerisms, her gestures, her expressions, even the way her mouth hung open when she wasn’t talking, was my dad all over again. For a few moments there, Dad was alive again.
When I expressed my verklempted-ness, Aunt Bernie treated me to a Princess Di glance and a little smile (so like dad!), and said, “We did come out of the same gene pool, after all.”
And that was so dad too—using logic to veer away from emotion. I just had to laugh, but I didn’t let her Alber-ness daunt me. I was feeling emotional, and I was going to express it!
“I’m getting teary,” I said. “It’s like seeing dad again.”
“Well, that’s OK then,” she said, which makes me smile even now. So effusive, we Albers!
It might be a truism that our themes pick us rather than the other way around. If that’s so, I wonder when I’m going to start delving into mother-child dynamics?
DEBS: Well, if you do, Lisa, I can't wait to read the result. Here's what the reviewers have to say about PATH INTO DARKNESS:
“Alber’s third series outing is an atmospheric story of Ireland, filled with myth and darkness. The characters are as hard and mysterious as the land itself. Fans of Erin Hart’s dark Irish crime novels should welcome this series.” —Library Journal (starred review)
"A dark, compelling mystery with numerous plot twists and well-drawn characters interwoven with an involving portrait of life in a small insular Irish village." —Booklist
"Heartwrenching ... engaging ... A haunting tale rife with gruesome murders and secrets, Path into Darkness shines." —Foreword Reviews
“Lisa Alber’s new mystery is like a BBC drama—an Irish small town with far too many secrets. Every character's motivations seem utterly different after one more turn of the screw. And there is always one more turn of the screw.”
—Willamette Week
I can echo all that and add that I LOVED PATH INTO DARKNESS and so did my mystery fan daughter.
Lisa Alber’s debut novel, Kilmoon, was nominated for the Rosebud Award of Best First Novel. Kirkus calls her second novel, Whispers in the Mist, a “worthy successor to Kilmoon in tone, mood, complexity, and keen insight into human failures and triumphs.” She balances writing her next novel with gardening, dog-walking, and goofing off. She lives in Portland, OR. You can find Lisa online at lisaalber.com, Facebook and Twitter.
Lisa will be dropping in to chat, and will give away a copy of PATH INTO DARKNESS AND an Irish trinket to a lucky commenter.
READERS, do you enjoy books that explore complicated family relationships?
