Wisp of a Thing

When I picked up THE HUM AND THE SHIVER, I was doing it out of a sense of loyalty to the author. Alex Bledsoe currently lives in my hometown (Mount Horeb, Wis.) and he and I have been Twitter/Facebook pals for some time. I enjoyed his Eddie LaCrosse books, but that's more my speed: swords and banter. Love it. There was nothing about THE HUM AND THE SHIVER that actually made me want to read it. I just figured I ought to to support Alex.

And damned if he didn't make me love it. There was just something about it. The mystery of the Tufa, the music, the gentle backwoods cast, the setting...it was just perfect. I went out immediately and put the next two books in the series on my reading list. But, like most people, my “to-be-read” pile tends to grow faster than my “has-been-read” pile, so it took me a couple of months to get to WISP OF A THING.

By the third chapter, I was kicking myself for not getting there sooner. Alex is a gifted storyteller, and the world-building he's done with Cloud County is as magical as its residents. His prose is Tupperware tight, but effortlessly readable and pages tick past like miles on a country road.

I found it strange that he chose not to follow the main characters of the first novel, but in doing so he's given himself a much larger, much more interested sandbox in which to play. While I would have liked to hear more about Bronwynn Hyatt and her life, I didn't miss her. Bliss Overbay, Rockhouse Hicks, and the rest of the Needsville townies more than make up for her absence, and in some ways surpass it.

WISP OF A THING is one of those books that sticks with you because of it's haunting nature, and because of the revelations about the Tufa that it provides. While THE HUM AND THE SHIVER was a good bait novel, WISP OF THING is where Bledsoe really yanks back on the rod and sets the hook.

I finished the book last night before I went to sleep. Upon waking, I cracked my copy of LONG BLACK CURL over breakfast. I can't stay away from Cloud County for too long anymore. Maybe it's the Tufa magic...