{"id":606,"date":"2013-04-10T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=606"},"modified":"2013-04-10T08:23:10","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T13:23:10","slug":"i-for-in-the-shadow-of-blackbirds-by-cat-winters-book-review-dead-mans-worries-live-girls-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=606","title":{"rendered":"I for In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (book review) – dead man’s worries, live girl’s fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a>Spirit photography<\/a>,
\nSearching for answers,
\nTrying to find meaning for all those deaths…<\/p>\n

Between the ongoing “Great War” (World War I<\/a>) and the sudden Spanish Influenza epidemic<\/a>, fall 1918 was a dangerous and desperate time in the USA. Researchers were trying to ascertain the weight of the human soul<\/a>, wondering yet again what animates life.<\/p>\n

Read the wartime poetry of Isaac Rosenberg<\/a> to imagine what life in the trenches was like for Stephen, consider that scientists are still puzzled about how the Spanish Flu killed so many healthy 20- to 40-year-olds, and you too might wish to see the image of a dead loved one when the photographer’s glass plate negative was developed.<\/p>\n

Just published on April 2, 2013 – don’t miss it!
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/strong>: In the Shadow of Blackbirds \/ Cat Winters. Amulet Books, 2013.\u00a0 [author site<\/a>]\u00a0 [book site<\/a>]\u00a0 [publisher site<\/a>]\u00a0 [book trailer<\/a>]<\/p>\n

My recommendation<\/strong>: When Mary was sent to her aunt\u2019s house in San Diego, her father thought she would be safe from the influenza epidemic, from the authorities who imprisoned him when he spoke out against the war, from fear. He couldn\u2019t know that her sweetheart\u2019s ghost would visit her and cry out for justice.<\/p>\n

Schools, theaters, dance halls \u2013 all closed to keep the contagion from spreading, but in autumn 1918 the death toll is mounting here and over in Europe where countless soldiers are dying. Aunt Eva lost her husband in the earliest days of the epidemic and is trying to contact him through spirit photography and s\u00e9ances.<\/p>\n

Stephen told Mary that his brother Julius used trickery to create the spirit photographs, but after her sweetheart left for the war, she visited the studio with her aunt anyway. An expert who debunks spirit photographers has found nothing fraudulent in Julius\u2019 work where ghostly images appear next to the living.<\/p>\n

The letters from Stephen stop arriving, a telegram comes for his family, a funeral for yet another fallen young soldier \u2013 then he starts visiting Mary in her dreams and her waking moments, begging her to make the blackbirds quit attacking him. She volunteers her time at the veterans\u2019 center, reading to injured soldiers back from the war. One man tells her that Stephen wasn\u2019t killed over there, and 16-year-old Mary begins to wonder what really happened.<\/p>\n

Is she truly talking to Stephen\u2019s spirit?
\nHow could blackbirds have caused his death?
\nWhy does he tell Mary to stay away from his family\u2019s house and studio?<\/p>\n

The author ably captures the terror of the Spanish flu epidemic which often killed within hours and the longing of people wanting to believe that death is not the end of everything in this historical novel with a psychic twist. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com<\/a>) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spirit photography, Searching for answers, Trying to find meaning for all those deaths… Between the ongoing “Great War” (World War I) and the sudden Spanish Influenza epidemic, fall 1918 was a dangerous and desperate time in the USA. Researchers were trying to ascertain the weight of the human soul, wondering yet again what animates life. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,50,41],"tags":[10,7,75,105,11,5,37,16,18,44,43,39,27,49,15,21,35,33,6,8,59],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-historical","category-paranormal","tag-a2z","tag-beliefs","tag-brothers","tag-california","tag-communication","tag-coping","tag-death","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-growing-up","tag-love","tag-medical","tag-memories","tag-relationships","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-travel","tag-us-author","tag-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":702,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}