Murder. Unexplained events. Mysterious symbols. One woman risks her life and challenges her belief in good and evil to uncover the truth…A spree of unexplained serial killings rocks the quiet, God-fearing town of Eastwood, shattering nearly 350 years of peace and harmony since the witch trials in neighboring Salem. Rachel, a successful interior decorator, finds her own past is inexplicably … inexplicably entwined with the happenings.
Rachel’s focus on growing her clientele leads to redecorating the family homes of some of the oldest, wealthiest and most powerful women in Eastwood. With no family of her own, Rachel welcomes becoming a trusted confidant and is taken into their social circle. She learns that her own past is tied not only to this society of women but also to the town itself, and that history is darker and more sinister the deeper she dives.
As she tries to learn all she can from her new friends, she finds herself in a race against time as the genteel women are being targeted and murdered before they can divulge their secrets. Each new murder leads Rachel further into their murky past to try to unearth the truth behind one cryptic symbol, and what it means to the future of the town.
Pitted against the killer, will Rachel succeed in unlocking the mysteries of supernatural phenomena, save her new friends and prevent a rebirth of Wiccan hysteria?
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This debut novel took me by surprise. I expected a supernatural mystery, and I got that, but it’s so much more than that. The Color of Fear is a bit of a mixed bag of genres and tropes. It starts out with our main character at her brother’s funeral and had an overall dark feel to it, which makes sense given the nature of his death. From there, the story moves forward and we start to learn about Rachel and the town she lives in. We do get quite a bit of information in the beginning and there are some info dump type passages. There is also a number of characters introduced rather quickly, and with so much information included, it did take a bit to figure out the who’s who of this tale. Nevertheless, each character is given enough space throughout the story that I began to get a feel for them and where they stood in the pecking order. These introductory chapters have a cozy mystery vibe to them, as well as an almost soap opera type feel with the who’s cheating who rundown – both in and out of the bedroom. The setting is modern day, but the dialogue seems more old world, which I assume is due to the lifestyle and elite nature of the characters. As the story progresses, things slowly start to take on a darker tone and for our main character, everyone is a suspect. At times during the story, it felt like the mystery took a backseat to the everyday lives of the community, but little by little, it all comes together and makes sense. I was impressed with how the author managed so much going on and still kept that niggling air of suspense throughout. The book is lengthy and while there were things I liked and things I didn’t, the writing style and attention to detail kept the pages turning. In the end, I suppose you could say that this is a murder mystery mixed in with some romance, a bit of the supernatural, small town life, and old world society. Whatever the genre, if this is any indication of what this debut author is capable of, I’m intrigued to see what she does next.
Agatha Christie, move over
The Color of Fear is author Wendy Wanner’s debut novel. Ms. Wanner is a talented writer and an exceptional storyteller. The novel is a fast-paced page-turner in the most enjoyable sense. Although I finished this book this past weekend, the story, the plot, and most of all the characters are still with me. The story is, among other things, a whodunit that pays tribute to the genre for which Agatha Christie is famous. But like a Venn diagram, The Color of Fear also falls within other genres: literary and occult fiction.
Likable characters and an interesting story are, of course, important, a good reason to read a book. But that is not enough in my view for a book to merit a five-star review. There must be more, and in the case of The Color of Fear, there is much more: an intricate multilayered plot and psychologically rich characters with believable and satisfying arcs. In The Color of Fear both the characters and the stories continue to surprise as the narrative unfolds.
Regarding characterization, by way of example, we meet the protagonist, Rachel Steerley of Eastwood, Massachusetts at the outset at the funeral of her older brother Stephen in Scotland. Stephen was a suicide by self-defenestration. After the funeral, shortly before her flight back to Massachusetts, Rachel stops by to see her sister-in-law. In a surprising first turn, the sister-in-law screams at Rachel, telling her to take her demons, depart, and never return. That was creepy, and as I continued reading, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. When I was a little more than halfway through, and nothing had occurred to suggest that Rachel was a bearer of demons, I concluded that the sister-in-law scene was a MacGuffin. Rachel is this sweet woman, goodhearted, nothing remotely sinister about her. The demon allegation, I concluded, was a chink in an otherwise superbly developing novel. But Wanner, an elegant storyteller, returned to this incredibly important clue, in a surprising twist at the very end.
So yes, Rachel is developed as a fine, loving, talented artistic woman, but that alone doesn’t relate to the complexity of her character or her character arc. Rachel, we discover, has a huge emptiness like a void obscuring her essence. She is an orphan, her parents having drowned when she was six. Afterward, she was raised by her grandparents while Stephen doted over her, protected her. When we meet Rachel in media res, she is a talented interior designer who has no close friends, no romantic interests, and aside from her work, no hobbies, social or intellectual interests. She is a contented, successful, two-dimensional (you might say) workaholic moving through life, doing what she loves, building a thriving business. She has no self-awareness of the cornucopia of pleasures and satisfactions life has to offer.
Then the murders begin. Four elderly ladies of Eastwood, each a new client and potential friend of Rachel’s, dies shortly after Rachel begins work for them. Rachel is the last person to see each of these women alive, except that is, for the killer. Unless Rachel is the killer. Is Rachel the killer? Does she have a dual personality? An interesting theory but one that proved false to me by the time of the second murder.
It is then that we begin to see the development of Rachel as the she flowers and grieves as her new clients are killed one after another, hollowness at the center of her being fills with new senses of purpose. The murders allow or cause Rachel to lower her defenses. She makes new good friends with good people (well mostly good people), she becomes romantically involved with the fine young man next door, a solo practicing lawyer. She develops newfound intellectual interests—especially about the history of Eastwood—and extracurricular pursuits: horseback riding and plans to restore her childhood home. She has moved back to Eastwood into her ancestral family home before the book begins. And as the novel progresses, Rachel learns more and more about and becomes ever more interested in the town’s citizens, its history, and her family’s history. This is rich character development and deeply satisfying character arc.
Meaningful character development in The Color of Fear, isn’t confined to Rachel. All the characters make important choices and undergo significant and satisfying change. I’ll dwell briefly on two bachelors, brothers Brian—a seller of rare books—and Frederick Richardson—the pastor in Eastwood’s oldest chruch. Each of these men though eccentric are filled with energy and purpose when we readers are introduced to them. When we first meet Frederick his sermons are vibrant, his counseling of parishioners wise and sincere. But at the end events have left him a defeated hollow man, leaving Eastwood, abandoning his church and congregation, turning his back on God as though for him life had lost all of its meaning.
The other reason I so highly recommend this book is for the elegant intricacy of the intertwining plots as they unfold. There is the overriding question of whodunit. And how. And why. Even these plotlines are bifurcated, even trifurcated. There is the police investigation and Rachel’s. Along the way we are treated to the budding of not one but two romances, a psychologically abused wife coming of age, women forming new friendships with one another, the relationship of the Richardson brothers, and the deep secrets of a legacy of witchcraft. Eastwood we learn isn’t far from Salem and witchcraft mania is never far from the psyche of the town folks, descendants of Puritan pilgrims. And as I said, the surprising, satisfying twist at the end.
The book I’ve reviewed was purchased myself.