The Secrets of Life and Death

June 22, 2015
The 16th-century storyline in this paranormal thriller debut is gripping, featuring both Countess Elisabeth Báthory, said to have slaughtered 80 girls and bathed in their blood to stay young, and John Dee, necromancer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth. Unfortunately, the sections set in present day England are less enticing. In 1585, Dee and his assistant, Edward Kelley, undertake a perilous journey to the Báthory castle at Niepolomice, Poland, where they are asked to save the life of the countess. Alexander does a convincing job of depicting the dangers along the way, including an attack on the convoy by wolves, and that feeling of lurking violence is sustained as Dee attempts to fulfill his mission. The first contemporary sections are also suspenseful, as Prof. Felix Guichard, an expert on "esoteric belief systems," is called in by the police when the corpse of a teenager bearing "possible evidence of sorcery"âEnochian symbols that allegedly were given to Dee by angelsâturns up in a train in Exeter, England. Guichard's quest for the truth becomes less interesting as it proceeds, and his character is underdeveloped. Readers will be left with high hopes for Alexander's next outing.

September 1, 2014
Despite its portentous title, this debut novel is neither a lost work by Tolstoy nor an ironic hipster comedy, but an occult thriller aimed at readers not yet sick to undeath of vampires. In case there aren't any of those left, Alexander mixes in three or four other popular genres: historical fiction, serial-killer mystery, hints of zombies and touches of romance. The vampires in question don't swirl capes or turn into bats, but they do trace their origins to a remote castle in the Carpathians. As the novel opens, Queen Elizabeth I's favorite alchemist, Doctor John Dee, and his assistant, Edward Kelley, flee from a pack of wolves on their way to visit the court of King Istvan Bathory, Voivode of Transylvania. The king's niece Erzsebet-a historical figure infamous for murdering young girls-appears to be dying, and the king asks the alchemists to cure her. Meanwhile, in present-day England, a pair of witches is working to revive a young girl from her predestined death, since the blood of "revenants," or "borrowed timers," makes an effective cure for cancer. Can they keep her hidden from her pursuers: the police, a professor, an Inquisition priest and a mysterious woman who may herself be undead? The brief chapters flip back and forth between the two storylines in a way that may have been meant to emphasize parallels in the plots or themes, but it mostly just makes the book feel choppy; no particularly profound secrets of life and death emerge. Still, Alexander creates an agreeably spooky atmosphere of impenetrable forests and blood lust, with no obvious howlers in the historical sections (unless you count those wolves).

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August 1, 2014

Jackdaw Hammond is a woman living on borrowed time. Found in near-death condition as a child, she was saved by a witch who was able to reverse her fate with the use of alchemical sigils and herbs, and now Jack's work is to find others to save. Her duties are exposed by Felix Guichard, a professor cooperating with the police who recognizes the sigils on the body of a dead girl. The signs have come from the writings of the famous 16th-century alchemist John Dee, and the story also follows John's efforts in the past to save a dying woman while facing the forces of the Inquisition who believe he is doing the devil's work. VERDICT Imaginative and at times quite suspenseful, Alexander's first novel blends urban fantasy with historical fantasy/horror as she links two fascinating stories: Jack's race to save one girl while hiding from those who think her pursuits are evil and John's dark efforts in the Carpathian mountains. The two plots are not always successfully balanced, unfortunately, but this is still a highly readable fantasy that will appeal to fans of Deborah Harkness and Katherine Howe.

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