Gull Soup

Overall I enjoyed this book. Mandy, has left the city and rented a cabin on the northern coast of Lake Michigan in October. No tourists around, and she is hoping for some quiet reflective time to try writing. After the death of her mother she is trying to find some inner peace. One day she notices twelve gulls floating dead in the water, and she becomes obsessed with finding out why they died. I liked the mystery, I liked the relationship between her and Jackson, and his dog Doc. I liked the characters for the most part that surround them. What I didn't enjoy was the negative voices of an ex-friend who kept popping up in her head, and I didn't like the supposedly ghost voice of the mother talking to her through the keyboard. A little strange. I could see the point with the near drowning, but not just voices in the head. Made me think she should see a therapist instead of being a part of the story. The creepy guy in the woods, the strange DNR agent, etc. add a nice spice to the story. Would recommend this book.

I'm really in two minds about this book. I liked Mandy but at times I got fed up of her. I liked the fact she talks to her dead Mum but disliked her obsession with her so called friend! At times I thought the book was quite boring.

To be honest, I found this novel a bit hard to get into. The focus in the first several pages was mostly on the dead gulls in the water and not enough on the main character. I was left wondering for a long time (or it seemed like a long time to me) why she cared so much about the dead birds. Once I got into the story though, the plot moved along more quickly.

This book is like a winding road, as you don’t know what you’ll see around the bend.

Amanda (Mandy) Sweetman is renting a cabin on Lake Michigan to get her life back on track after the death of her mother. Mandy needs to gather her thoughts and try to figure out what direction her life should now take.

”She loved to watch the sunset throw its pink and orange hues over all the sailboats anchored in the bays, wishing her eyes could communicate to a paintbrush, which in turn would apply watercolours to canvas.”

Mandy’s serenity is disrupted when she awakes one morning to find twelve dead gulls in the water outside her cabin. Mandy is determined to find out what happened to the gulls, and along the way starts to receive messages from her mother from the “other side”. It was quite sweet reading these passages where Mandy was having conversations with her mother, as it gave her peace of mind.

”Live consciously, be kind and share you heart.”

Helping Mandy solve the mystery of the gulls is her neighbour from a cabin further up the road, Jackson and his dog Doc, as well as the local wildlife ranger, Buck. Completely different personalities. But are they helping her or hindering her? And who is the murky stranger on the beach, seen taking strange objects onto his boat at all hours?

Something that I found odd was the fact that Mandy kept one of the dead gulls in her freezer. “Number 12”, as he was the twelfth gull’s body she removed from the water. I’m doubtful that if I was staying in a flat on Lake Michigan and was in the same situation, that I’d keep a seagull in my freezer, let alone converse regularly with it. I’m even more doubtful that I’d eat the ice-cream from the same freezer, even if it was best vanilla or salted caramel flavour. I really had to suspend my belief for this part of the book, it was just too left of field for me.

” ‘Night buddy’, she said and shut the freezer door.”

It’s tricky for me to decide what genre/s this book fits best into, as it has so many divergent themes running through it.

This is a quirky book with esoteric themes. Loss, searching for meaning in life, new love , messages from the other side and environmental issues are found here. Recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley & the publisher Black Rose Writing for the opportunity to read this advance copy, in exchange for an honest review.

My review can also be found on Goodreads at the below link.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36813715-gull-soup