Sleep, Pale Sister - Joanne Harris

Sleep, Pale Sister is another novel by the writer Joanne Harris, the creator of Chocolat. This book is a big step away from Chocolat, it features a different form of magic and an entirely different mother-daughter team, and neither of them are the particular focus of this book. As with the vast majority of her novels, Harris writes this from the point of view of several characters. Set in Victorian London the book revolves around an artist named Henry Chester. One day, while walking through a park, Henry spies a girl named Euphemia (nicknamed "Effie") who instantly becomes his muse. For years he looks after her and her family (she has no ...  Read the complete review

This was one of her first books, and it doesn't appeal to the main body of popular fiction. Only a few books have ever sent shivers down my spine, but I shouldn't have read this book at night. It is easy at first to get the plot of the story, although maybe a little abstract- the artist, the main character, Henry, marrying his model, Effie, may not be strange, but the fact he married her since knowing her from the age of 9 is. As the story develops, it delves into paedophilic tendencies and the paranormal, and it becomes, a little hard to follow. It involves a girl who was killed at the age of 10 by Henry, and who proceeds to possess his wife in order to live again and ...  Read the complete review