Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Man in the Picture and The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Man in the Picture and The Mist in the Mirror

by Susan Hill

by Karen S. Wiesner

Susan Hill is one of those authors that effortlessly puts you directly into the fictional settings and personal lives of her characters (many of her stories are ghost and/or horror) with so much atmospheric reality, you're convinced of the authenticity of everything. Two of my favorite stories by this author, though it is very hard to choose, are The Man in the Picture and The Mist in the Mirror.

The Man in the Picture was published in 2007. An oil painting depicting masked revelers at a Venetian carnival has the power to entrap and destroy. This story is told from several points of view as those who have experienced the horror give heartrending testimony about what they've gone through, what they've lost. The overarching message of this very complex and well-written story is, Never underestimate the power of fury or the depths people will sink to in order to get revenge or to achieve their own goals. As an unsuspecting bystander caught up with the excitement of the celebrating crowds (a very apt comparison, considering this particular theme), I become ensnare within this novel and all the chilling events. In the process, I was swept along until I was all but lost in the storytelling. Every part of this tale of terror beguiled me. 

Set in the Victorian age, The Mist in the Mirror was published in 1999. The hero Sir Monmouth's life has been filled with travel. He's lived his life mostly alone, and there's an undeniable innocence about him. He believes unwaveringly in the innate goodness of his fellow man. As the story opens, he arrives in England intending to devote himself to learning more about a fellow explorer from the past, Conrad Vane, and perhaps document the adventurer's life. However, as he sets about following this trail, he's warned by many well-meaning others not to go down that road. Apparently, Vane was a man who plummeted the depths of depravity and cruelty and, even after his death, the foolish one who pursued him would become tainted by his evil. Extraordinary, disturbing events plague Monmouth with nightmares, involving a shrouded little boy and an old woman behind the curtain. Despite all this, he stubbornly continued on his course. Monmouth's quest quickly becomes a relentless obsession that threatens to steal his health, his sanity, even his life. Overarching themes in the story point to care being taken to the one you choose to make your idol, as that person may not be who or what you assume him or her to be.

While at first blush, this story didn't seem like there could possibly be enough material to flesh out into a full novel, it quickly became larger than life, frighteningly claustrophobic, the protagonist someone to rail against but also to sympathize—even emphasize—with as he lost control of his own compulsion. I read equally compulsively, lost in the fog that this gothic horror story seemed to conjure, blocking out my own reality. When I finished it, I couldn't shake the chill--and the warning to heed the regrets of the main character--that remained.

Both of these stories provide frightening lessons to be learned about taking anything to the extreme. Addictions can so easily steal and usurp purpose in life, so that a person becomes the opposite of what he or she intends or desires.

Note that both of these stories are published separately as well as in the author's own collections.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/