Candles Burning
A Novel
Book - 2006 | First edition.
An extraordinary southern saga begun by Michael McDowell and finished after his death by Tabitha King. Known for his chilling Blackwaterseries, author Michael McDowell left behind the unfinished manuscript for Candles Burningupon his death in 1999. In the spirit of the ghost stories that Michael loved, Tabitha King has taken up where he left off, weaving a Southern gothic fabric of murder, guilt, innocence, corruption, and survival, in the voices of the living and the dead. Calliope "Calley" Dakin is just seven when her beloved father is tortured, murdered, and dismembered by two women with no discernible motivation. In the aftermath, Calley and her mother find themselves caught up in inexplicable events that exile them to Pensacola Beach, where-in a house that's a dead ringer for Calley's late great-grandmother's house-a woman awaits their presence. For Calley is no normal little girl.
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Publisher:
New York : Berkley Books, 2006.
Edition:
First edition.
ISBN:
9780425210284
0425210286
0425210286
Branch Call Number:
KIN
Characteristics:
423 pages ;,24 cm
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Add a CommentTabitha King is Stephen King's wife.
A young girl who has lost her daddy to murder is now forced to live at her grandmother''s house with her bratty brother and self-centered mother finds she has special powers. And when her spiteful grandmother dies, her mother is forced to leave her brother behind and seek refuge in an old house in Pensacola. This house is an exact replica of her great-grandmother?s house that has burned down years ago complete with items from that house! Creepy occurrences are imbedded deep in a ponderous story reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates but it moves as fast as stone is ground into sand. For over half the book every daily dull occurrence is recorded with exact descriptions by the young girl. When strange things start to happen it makes the reader sit bolt upright, but then the mundane intrudes again and the story plods along for another fifty pages or so. In the end I found this book to belabor what could have been more than just a creepy tale. A major disappointment from two talented writers.