Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany's More than Sorrow received a starred review from Library Journal which called it “a splendid Gothic thriller.” Delany is also the author of the Constable Molly Smith series, a police procedural set in British Columbia, and the Klondike Gold Rush books, a light-hearted historical series.

Not so long ago I asked the author what she was reading. Delany's reply:

Before writing this piece, I thought I’d pop back a year and a half and see what I was reading then. I said I was reading modern-Gothics while writing my own new thriller, More than Sorrow. And, I’m happy to say, More than Sorrow has just been released.

September has been a great month for releases by favourite authors, and I’m happily buying away. In my TBR pile I have Until the Night by Giles Blunt, Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson, and The Face of the Enemy by Beverle Graves Myers and Joanne Dobson. Perhaps my favourite type of book is the British-style police procedural, and no one does it better than Peter, who seems to be able to keep on doing it and keeping up the quality. Last year, I read his standalone Before the Poison, which I greatly enjoyed. It’s a true modern-Gothic novel which is my second favourite style of writing!

I had a fabulous summer of reading. The weather here was just about perfect (unless you’re a farmer) and I spent many lazy days sitting in the sun on the deck by the pool. Reading, reading, reading.

Over the summer I took a trip back into time and re-read some of the books by Trevanian. Remember him? Shibumi and the The Summer of Kayta were as good as I remembered. Sure the protagonist in Shibumi is a little bit over the top, perfection-wise, but still a darn good book. And The Summer of Kayta is, in my mind, almost perfect. The suspense builds slowly, with nothing but atmosphere and character to keep it going, until just a few pages before the end. I doubt that book would get published today.

Right now, I’m reading the third book by Tana French. For some reason her work never came to my attention until a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed In the Woods very much, an intense psychological police thriller – just my sort of thing – and then I immediately went for The Likeness. Which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much, I found it very repetitious and too long, but I thought I’d give her one more try with Faithful Place. I’m about half done that one at the moment, and it’s great. So I see Broken Harbour in my future.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: More Than Sorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue