What I Am Reading - Jasmyn

Jasmyn

By Alex Bell

Last summer I stumbled across a book titled “The Ninth Circle”, and although this is not review of that book they do in fact share the same author.  “The Ninth Circle” was actually my favorite book last year.  Sadly in an effort to share her genius I suggested that someone read it and they either chose not to return the book or agreed with me in my assumption of genius and greedily chose to not return the book.  Why this is relevant, well someone asked me for a referral and I immediately started digging through my books looking for it.  When it failed to appear to my whims of discovery I kicked down to B-Noble, mind you at the time I had forgotten the authors name and the exact title.  So here I am at B-Noble walking up and down the aisles looking for this book when I finally give up and decide to go see what had just come in for my reading pleasure.  Lucky for me I have a really good sense of art association and new instantly that the cover of “Jasmyn” was immediately the person who had also wrote “The Ninth Circle”.  I was sold instantaneously and also was able to find “The Ninth Circle” although reacquiring that proved quite the ordeal.

Alex Bell, whom I though was a man until I did some research is actually a 25 year old nice pillow built mommy from England.  She is responsible for “Jasmyn”, “The Ninth Circle”, and a developing series titled “Lex Trent.”  I have had a few brief conversations with her on f-book, don’t really know why but she seems very approachable so I approach.  Anyways, enough about Alex and onto her work on “Jasmyn.”

“Jasmyn” started slower than I expected but slowly and surely you begin to understand that weird stuff, stuff that really is kind of odd in context, is happening more and more abundantly.  Jasmyn being the main character happens to be the run of the mill Albino violin player, recently a widow.   During the course of mourning things start getting weird.  Not to sound redundant with “weird” but you start picking out inconsistencies and then suddenly in the midst of normality you are swept to a paragraph or two that makes sense but seem to belong in a different story.  It is fantastic, magical, and nearly seamless as I often find myself stopping a few sentences in to reread what just passed in front of my face.  It would appear that Jasmyn’s now deceased husband, Liam; who had in his active life researched and written about fairy tales, was also into some shady stuff.  Jasmyn, who is oblivious to it all, must come face to face with her deceased husbands extra-curricular life.

The story starts more natural and then seems to descend into this fairy tale style that is grand and kicks you in the teeth.  As if there are two stories side by side and every so often they violently cross leaving the reader wondering which path they are still on.