The second book of the author's Illusian Sequence, St. PETER'S WOOD, is strikingly unlike the first book, the fairy tale/fantasy RASHINGOR, ST. PETER'S WOOD recalls instead the wintry contemplations of a 19th century British rural novel. In this haunting tale, fantasy is quieter and more private, hidden "in the ore of the ordinary," and the aging central characters, Veronica Holystone and Dennis Haiworthy, are people who live unsung lives, doing what the days require. And yet the wonderful is in their story as well. To her great house deep in the tangled woods, Veronica draws an assembly of weary and restless characters, some human, and some not, who, each for his or her own reasons, need to be there. Artfully crafted and beautifully written, this is the only book of the Sequence that has no song. At least, none that is written here. The story ends when the story ends, but the Sequence continues with a third novel, THE STREET OF SECRETS.

St. Peter's Wood (Illusian Sequence)

Literature & Fiction

C. A. Rodriguez

Literary

Hudson House Publishing

The third novel of the author's Illusian Sequence, THE STREET OF SECRETS is, as we've come to expect, overtly unlike the other two, different in style, different in genre, different in approach. A cheerfully upended turn-of-the-century noir or cozy mystery, laced with sudden LOL Dickensian humor, it follows the reluctant investigation of private detective Nodule Bogardus into a crime of no consequence whatever--the minor vandalization, by person or persons unknown, of a music book taken out of the library by five people in the past twenty years. Accompanied by his faithful, if not always cooperative, dog, D'Artagnan, and assisted (on his own terms) by his old friend Chief Inspector Rene Titoque, who doesn t have much to do in the off-season of a tourist city, Bogardus prowls the steep streets of the old stone city of Illusia seeking answers, of course, but mostly just trying to make his rent and pursue a glimpse of the ultimate woman of his fantasies--the glorious seductress Sindrice, who sings at The Teetering Nephew on the Street of Secrets. There are songs in this novel, as there are in RASHINGOR, the first novel of the Sequence (music in the appendix), most notably Sindrice s torchy, tinkling, Marlene Dietrich-like waltz "Teetering on the Brink ." There is sadness and there is sunlight, and the themes of the Sequence are brought unobtrusively into the twentieth century.

The Street of Secrets

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Books by C. A. Rodriguez

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by C. A. Rodriguez. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

St. Peter's Wood (Illusian Sequence)

The Street of Secrets