The Garden of Blue Roses

by Michael Barsa

A car lies at the bottom of an icy ravine. Slumped over the steering wheel, dead, is the most critically acclaimed horror writer of his time. Was it an accident? His son Milo doesn't care. For the first time in his life, he's free. No more nightmarish readings, spooky animal rites, or moonlit visions of his father in the woods with a notebook and vampire make-up.

Or so he thinks.

Milo settles into a quiet routine—constructing model Greek warships and at last building a relationship with his sister Klara, who's home after a failed marriage and brief career as an English teacher. Then Klara hires a gardener to breathe new life into their overgrown estate. There's something odd about him—something eerily reminiscent of their father's most violent villain. Or is Milo imagining things? He’s not sure. That all changes the day the gardener discovers something startling in the woods. Suddenly Milo is fighting for his life, forced to confront the power of fictional identity as he uncovers the shocking truth about his own dysfunctional family—and the supposed accident that claimed his parents’ lives.

Genres: Horror, Gothic, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, 21st Century

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 17, 2018

About the author

Michael Barsa grew up in a German-Syrian household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American "R" and a lifelong fascination with language. He's lived on three continents and spent many summers in southern Germany and southern Vermont.

He's worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia and Underland Arcana.

The Garden of Blue Roses is his first novel.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”I didn’t trust his death. Father was an author. He was words. You can’t kill words---can’t lock them up and drive them off a cliff.”



The Crane children were raised on tales such as Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk. Not to mention the lurid tales of Edgar Allan Poe. The ”virus of fear” was planted in their lives early, and the tendrils of dread have spread into every nook and cranny of their brains, coloring everything they see with sepia tones of gothic gloom, creaking stairs, window rattling angst.

What is real? What is mere fabrication from a vivid imagination? I wonder about that all the time. Did I really see that, and more importantly, did I interpret what I saw correctly? The spectres of ghosts and the antics of hobgoblins often seem to dance and skitter about on the edges of my sight. A glimpse of something half seen is but fodder for speculation and the inspiration for quills of shivers to prickle my spine.

Those same quivers of unease frolic along the highways and byways of my neurons as I collect the pieces of this plot to assemble a portrait of insidious intrigue.

Klara, the daughter, attempts to leave. She marries and tries to have a life away from her father, away from the air of apprehension that smothers this house as words of terror trickle down from the attic where John Crane, The John Crane, works on his next creature born of midnight ink and ghostly paper. Klara fails to flourish... out there. She slinks back to the family hearth, bearing more unease than when she left, shattered by the knowledge that her world, once large, has shrunk to the confines of her father’s existence.

Milo, the maker of models, is the narrator of our tale. ”I blended flesh---cinnabar red, yellow, white, olive green---and dipped the brush’s tip. Now the final touch. To breathe life into my lips.” There are varying degrees of strange, and part of the intrigue of this novel is observing enough of Milo’s behavior to decide just how odd the young man is. He is an unreliable narrator, but at the same time, so compelling that I am continually convinced of his version of events. If we think of his life as a mirror reflecting his existence, there is a crack in the corner, and with every creak and groan of the Crane home, that fissure lengthens.

Everything is fine, well as fine as it can be, until Henri shows up. Klara has decided that she wants to build a beautiful garden in honor of their father and mother. She hires Henri, who proclaims himself a great artistic gardener, but he seems to have shed his past like a python casting off his old skin. Milo is naturally curious and concerned about the influence that Henri so quickly achieves over Klara. They are at war from almost the very beginning, a battle for Klara.

”I sent a whisper across his sweat damp back, an insinuated magical word:

‘Malevolent.’

I told myself it was a powerful word, one that Father always loved, with its shades of reverent and violent and malignant. Yet as soon as I’d uttered it, I realized my mistake. Because suddenly it was more than a word. More than a spoken one, I mean. I saw it hanging in the air like an invisible word cloud. What was happening? Henri turned and flashed his yellow teeth. Then the word was gone, bits of its dismembered letters dribbling down his chin. I saw a footless a, severed m, decapitated e. I backed up, moved a chair between us, a flimsy barrier that I was sure would do no good. Yet I clung to it for something tangible to hold onto.

Is this how a fictional character reveals himself?”

A character from his father’s novels keeps rolling around in Milo’s head like a guardian angel of mayhem. Keith Sentelle is/was a psychotic killer and not a role model for anyone. A talon tipped question leaps out of the shadows...who created Keith Sentelle? Was it The John Crane? Or was it Milo? And while we are on this subject, who wrote the...well, I can’t really go there.

I can’t trust what Milo perceives.

The flimsy wall between fiction and reality is perforated with large gaping holes, slashes and gashes, rips and tears, and monster spore litters the ground on both sides of the tattered remains of the ramparts.

”...there was Henry walking through a greenhouse in a loose tan shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I gripped the chair’s leather arm. But I couldn’t look away---my curiosity was aroused. I found myself searching for stitches, scars, rivets---signs that he’d been made---or the unholy aura of a creature summoned from another world.”

Was the death of the Crane parents an accident?

There are so many questions that wiggle their way through this plot. I hunted those questions with a knife, trying to pin them to the floor or to the door or to the ear of a whore. I was careful not to sever them, or one becomes two. Answers are untrustworthy. These words, paragraphs, pages must be read with a spry mind. One cannot remain naive and hope to find a path back to reality.

I’ve seen that people are starting to compare this novel to the works of some of the great psychological horror writers, and they are right in doing so. Michael Barsa has written a brilliant novel with so many beautiful layers. I would read, ponder, and carefully consider all the suggestions of what has been dangled before me before I would read more. Rarely does this occur to me anymore, but my first thought after finishing this book was...I need to begin reading this book again. Barsa gives many nods to those writers who have come before him and I hope he continues to write in this genre. Gothic tales have always been a favorite of mine and I can see Barsa carving out a new genre...modern gothic.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

But wait, you say, you're the author…. Let me explain.

Sometimes love happens all at once. There it is: Boom! LOVE! Other times it’s a more gradual recognition, a process of allowing yourself to fall into the feeling—it’s a form of humility really, saying to yourself: right here, in this messy reality, is where I’ll choose to reside. This is how I’d describe my complicated feelings about my own writing.

For years I would have given everything I wrote one or zero stars, and deservedly so, because for years everything I wrote was terrible. I took uncommon glee in reading through a 300 page manuscript that had taken me more than a year to write, and deciding that the only thing worth saving was the opening paragraph (yes, this happened). It’s taken a painfully long time to learn to recognize that, well, not EVERYTHING was terrible, that here and there a paragraph or a phrase or more might be salvageable if I only came back to it later with a bit more patience, and that sometimes I ought NOT to trust my most savage and critical instincts. In other words, I had to learn to love my creations, to give them a chance, because sometimes good writing doesn’t happen all at once, sometimes you’ve got to keep coming back again and again and not give up and just hope you reach a point where something breaks through your own skepticism and allows you recognize that yes, this is getting somewhere, and yes, it’s not half bad. So I’m giving this 5 stars because I can finally say I’m proud of something I wrote. It’s not perfect, sure, and it might fail for some, but I love it all the same, because I’ve watched it grow up from nothing, from an inchoate burbling notion that I had no idea how to handle into a piece of fiction that now exists on its own in the big bad world, without my worrying and nagging guidance.

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading American author Michael Barsa’s The Garden of Blue Roses, I was thoroughly enchanted. Quite the debut novel. Since so much of the tale lies in its style as much as its action, other than noting how the story is narrated by twenty-something Milo Crane in the aftermath of the death via automobile crash of his mother and father, a popular writer of horror fiction, and the ensuing events he lives through with Klara, his elder sister of seven years, I will link my comments with specific quotes from the book so as to share the distinct flavor of this unique work.

“The crying only became louder. Our house has strange echoes. It was coming from all over, like the walls themselves were weeping. I was tempted to run away, to avoid a future of such sounds.”

If The Garden of Blue Roses was sheer pulp horror fiction, Michael Barsa’s inventiveness would be constricted within the boundaries of the genre. It is not. This is a work of true literature not pulp, thus its subtle poetry touches on the horrific but is not bound by it. The Garden of Blue Roses is in stark contrast to The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Psychopath, one of a number of hack works by Milo’s father, John Crane, a work cited throughout as literary counterpoint.

“I tried to focus on the trireme, something historical and real, but Father used to say that if you could imagine it, it was real to you, so I closed my eyes and tried to bury my imagination, to shovel it over with great mounds of earth.”

An example of how the story is told with such rich imagery, many passages could be transposed with ease into lyrical poetry. Thus my reluctance to merely summarize the bare sequence of happenings.

“Every now and then she kept up the pretense of mothering by insisting we eat supper together. I’ve never understood this penchant for masticating as a social ritual. We don’t make other bodily functions like defecation or nose blowing into elaborate occasions of forced togetherness.”

Ah, family! Milo provides the backstory, his own as well as other members of his family, to add weight to the unfolding drama. Milo was continually picked on and beaten up as a kid at school and when he attended a small liberal arts college for one term, the experience was so hellish he sought a correspondence course offering a college degree. Humorously, one of the thuggish dullards Milo was forced to deal with back at that small New England college was a big fan of, you guested it, John Crane horror novels.

“Even in his absence he was everywhere – in the creaking floors, the grandfather clock, the footsteps and shadowy trees, in the books crowding the living room shelves and appearing, like not-so-subtle reminders, on end tables or our pillows before we lay down at night. Not just his own books but the ones he thought we ought to read – Dickens and Hawthorne and Charles Brockden Brown – books to mold our imaginations to some uncertain and terrifying end.”

Any booklover will love the frequent references to authors and titles sprinkled throughout. Additionally, in keeping with that longstanding Gothic trope - witchcraft, magic and occultism – the presence of John Crane continues to manifest in more ways than one.

“Surfacing from memory is like coming up for air. There is that same exhausted relief, the wonder at being alive. Also the same moment of doubt, of whether this is really the dream and that other realm, the murky one of shifting shapes and swaying sunbeams, is the one you inhabit.”

When we read typical Gothic horror pulp, do we usually encounter reflections and musings rendered in such beautiful language? I don’t think so! The philosophic dimension of The Garden of Blue Roses was one I found particularly appealing.

“Beauty without context. I saw how Klara hung on his every word, how her breath fluttered like an excited bird’s. Was she blinded by his cheap charm? Or by a misguided sense of beauty: the prospect of transforming our grounds into some hideous floral theme park?”

Yet again another thread of this blossoming yarn is the psychological probing into the mind and heart of older sister Klara.

“She looked at me, and that’s when something came over her, because she gripped my shoulders hard and continued in a shaky dramatic whisper: “The devil?”

What's a good ole Gothic tale set in the land of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Young Goodman Brown without at least one reference to the evil one? Moreover, that classic Hawthorne is cited directly - some tales continue to cast a long shadow, a very long shadow.

“Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I realized this might be a classic John Crane plot, where nothing was what it seemed. . . . Had Father finally realized the power of his fiction – the power to literally create a life that leapt off the page and crossed over into the so-called real world?"

Oh, my. A narrator questioning the solidity of his world. Is this beginning to sound like another one of those prime Gothic tropes - a confusion over what is real or unreal that just might touch on madness? To find out, I highly recommend treating yourself to Michael Barsa's fine novel.


American author Michael Barsa lives in Chicago

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel took me on a journey that was well out of my comfort zone. At the same time, it gripped me so firmly I couldn’t put it down.

A famous horror writer and his wife are killed in a car accident. Somewhere in their 20’s or early 30’s, their daughter, Karla, and son Milo are left to cope with mourning fans, a large house full of haunting memories, and a fortune. During the course of the story, we are immersed in one of their father’s horror novels as the words – all in verses of rhyming couplets – thread their way through Milo’s mind and into their lives during moments of tension.

Milo is convinced that a character from his father’s novel is being duplicated by a man who finds entry into their lives through Karla’s need to restructure and re-balance her own life. Milo doesn’t see her needs in quite that way because he sees darker motives in the man – motives that Karla can’t or won’t see and that become inextricably bound up with the deadly character in their father’s horror novel.

This family is obviously dysfunctional in so many ways, yet it is more than that. They are damaged; and although Milo narrates this story, we can see he is damaged, too. Extraordinarily intelligent, but damaged.

There is tension throughout this story; at times barely discernible and ranging all the way to unbearably urgent. There are layers upon layers of veils shrouding the people and the events within these pages. As those veils are moved aside or torn down one by one, I became completely invested in the characters' lives and captured by Milo’s mind and how he perceived all that was happening.

Mr. Barsa’s writing is exceptional and flawless. As complex as this novel is, with so many perceived realities occurring simultaneously, now that it is over I am in awe of what the author accomplished and how exceedingly well it was done.

There are triggers within this novel, yet I still highly recommend it as an outstanding read – especially if you are brave enough to face triggers head-on, with honesty and with compassion.

The Garden of Blue Roses is literary fiction in its rarest form: superlative.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I once reviewed a book, giving it 2 stars, with a bit of shrill, teenage disappointment tainting my words. I was mortified when the author of this book "liked" my review that day. I couldn't sleep that night. Why couldn't he have read the review I wrote of his first book - that I LOVED? Would he ever know how much I admired his work? Why oh why did he have to read my pouty review with a laundry list of his sins-according-to-me? How would I feel to read a similar review of something I had written. CRINGE!**

I mention this to give you an idea of why the prospect of an author reading my review of their book is daunting, to say the least. I wasn't sure how this was going to go, given that I've "known" Michael Barsa as a Goodreads friend for the last few years. I try to be as honest as possible in my reviews, for better or worse. Imagine my deep, flooding relief as I turned the pages of his debut novel, thinking: this man can write! And then, minutes later: I'm loving it!

This tension-filled story features Milo, our creepy narrator, who lives with his sister Klara after the mysterious death of their parents. It seems like everything is better now, because their father, a famous horror writer, was a damaging man, as ghastly as some of the characters in in his books. Milo and Klara's peaceful existence is threatened when Klara hires Henri, a famous garden designer, to work on their property. Reality becomes murky. The air turns sinister. Family secrets are unearthed as the spade digs deeper - and it's not a bed of roses. Not everyone will get out of this alive.

For readers who enjoy the muddy, death-infused world of the gothic, this will hit the mark. For readers who require a literary infusion in the books they read, you can check that box too. It became clear to me that what Michael Barsa has created within these pages is actually a pretty passionate love-letter, that goes something like this:

Dearest Shirley Jackson, To my one and only love Bram Stoker, Mary-my-darling Shelley,

I love you all. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Havisham, even you, Mr. Hyde, you all Turn my Screws. In my words, you and your monsters live on, in a sumptuously decaying shrine of devotion.

With all my heart, MB

Congratulations to Michael Barsa on this book, this love letter, that would have made the recipients proud to receive.

**I'm happy to report that in private messages, the author acknowledged and agreed with the points I made. We had such a nice conversation. Now I will aspire to be as humble, as gracious, as open and as honest as he, if I am ever blessed/talented/hardworking enough to be published one day.

[Zoeytron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the fiction that plays out in our lives . . . and what we believe to be true.  The power of the written word cannot be denied.

A house with its avenues of gaping darkness, a hallway not unlike a gullet, strange echoes, shifting shadows.  A family with unnatural dynamics lives here.  Mother and Father are gone now, but grown  brother and sister remain.  Milo is decidedly peculiar.  He doesn't mix well out in the real world, but is a true talent in other ways.  Klara is odd, too, but seems to blossom after hiring a French gardener to create a memorial garden for their parents. 

The tone is pitch perfect with this gothic novel, and it leaves the back of my neck prickling even after closing the cover.  The way in which it is written harkens back to a time when an excess of blood and gore was not necessary in order to produce horror.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milo Crane I sort of adore you. You're strange, eccentric, and quite funny. I enjoyed being inside your head and I do love your dark humor.

I liked this book but I did find it a bit confusing at times. The author definitely keeps you on your toes. You never really know what is really happening or who is telling the truth or what is truth and what is imagination. It left me at times with my head spinning.

I didn't really find this book scary at all but it is unsettling at times.

One thing I do need to mention is that Michael Barsa writes so beautifully and for that alone you should read this book.

Thank you to Edelweiss for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy and slow-burning, sometimes funny (it ends on a wonderfully unexpected laugh), this gothic novel—the first I’ve ever read—is fun!

Michael Barsa is a writer’s writer, as well as being one of my Goodreads friends. And as a writer, I adore the way The Garden of Blue Roses plays with the author/created characters dynamic. I probably would never have picked this book up if it weren’t for the Goodreads connection, and I’m so glad I did. It is well written, perfectly paced, and literary. Much more than a genre novel.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this excellent story, we meet Milo Crane one of the least reliable unreliable narrators I have encountered thus far. In a novel strewn with Gothic touches, there are also other characters who feel less than real at least part of the time. Even on the sunny days of this novel, there is a mist over the characters. Barsa has created a contemporary Gothic atmosphere in Vermont, basing his tale on the family of a writer of horror novels. The physical home carries an aura in its general and specific descriptions. And the garden...ah yes! Gardens frequently seem to hold more than beautiful flowers.

Without providing excessive plot, I will say that Milo and Klara Crane’s famous parents died in a road accident within the first 3 pages of the book. All else follows as the questions real and unreal, sane and insane continue unabated to the final page. I recommend this book for those who enjoy atmosphere as character, the mysteries of a Gothic novel with an unreliable narrator, not knowing up from down at times as you read, but having that feeling of being compelled by the book and character himself to keep going and find out the “truth”.

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sheer delight for this lover of gothic horror. I’ll let all the excitement and creepiness settle a bit to sort out my thoughts and write more on this amazing debut soon.

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Barsa paints a New England Gothic landscape with strong brush strokes and vivid colors. From the old house with its dark secrets, to the primeval woods, the rural roads, covered bridges, and small towns, there’s depravity lurking beneath the limpid Norman Rockwell surface. We perceive that subliminal corruption as revealed through the eyes and mind of the narrator, Milo Crane.

Milo is a young adult who seeks shelter in his room, where he fantasizes about military history, weapons and fortifications, builds models of warships and lives in an imaginary world that borders on what we commonly think of as reality. Early on he seems a self-described eccentric and semi-recluse, a bit weird perhaps, but likeable. After all, between the black and white of social norms there are many shades of gray. He’s the product of a dysfunctional family. Milo had an aloof and forbidding best-selling writer for a father, a heavy-drinking and neglectful mother, and an older sister with whom he has a strange sadomasochistic relationship. Predictably, with his non-conformist quirks, he was marginalized and bullied by his peers. Is that narrative calculated to gain the reader’s sympathy before the “truth” is disclosed? Can we always trust our first impression of a character? What’s more, can we trust a first-person narrator’s impressions of the other characters in the story he or she narrates?

Milo is a prime example of the unreliable narrator frequently used in tales of psychological horror. Unreliable narrators aren’t necessarily “liars.” Rather, they tell “truths” that conform to their singular perspective. To quote a character from one of my own novels: “Thank heaven for people who are satisfied with facts that conform to the reality they wish to believe.”
There’s a mystery at the heart of the novel: Was the car crash that killed Milo’s parents an accident, or something else? A number of secondary mysteries are skillfully connected to the principal one involving the parents’ death. The tension and conflict are ratcheted up when Milo’s sister Klara hires a French gardener, Henri Blanc, to upgrade the landscaping. Milo hates the gardener at first sight; he identifies Henri with Keith, the author-father’s most sinister creation. But Milo is jealous; he wants to be the center of his sister’s attention. Is Milo’s perception skewed by jealousy, or does he see things clearly in his own, quirky way? On the other hand, could Milo be his father’s Frankenstein monster, his creature come to life? What’s more, could the tale be the product of a sinister collaboration between creator and creature?

The title of the novel is a metaphor related to a theme flowing throughout the narrative. A blue rose is something that doesn’t occur in nature, it’s mysterious and enigmatic. It can also symbolize the impossible, or unattainable. A garden of blue roses could imply an illusion, something beautiful created with the intent to deceive that could inspire its admirers to imitate the deception. The product of a warped imagination. In that respect, it might allude to Plato’s warning in The Republic: “Poetry…has a bad effect on its audiences, who learn to admire and imitate the faults it represents. We cannot, therefore, allow poets in our ideal state.”

Garden of Blue Roses is filled with clever literary allusions. There’s also plenty of dark humor. I particularly liked the scene where Milo tries to play Sherlock Holmes at the local HMO clinic. He attempts to get private information from an unfriendly clerk and discovers that sleuthing in a Victorian thriller and real-life detective work in contemporary America are not quite the same thing. All things considered, Barsa’s debut novel is a compelling read that kept me engaged from the first page to the last.

[DJ Sakata · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Rating:

3.5

Favorite Quotes:

Mother drove us to the wedding in the Volvo… She dabbed her eyes and distractedly jerked between lanes at fantastic speed. She must have imagined she was on the Autobahn. Even the notorious Boston drivers seemed terrified. She squealed into the parking garage and nearly ran over a man in a wheelchair. “He’s got to learn to share the road,” she muttered as he flapped his arms like a bird.

She’d occasionally dressed this way after her divorce. She called it “retro” but really it was like Emily Dickinson in her Sunday best. It was as if she rejected not just her ex-husband, but the entire era in which he lived.

I knew right away what it was. Why are unmarked cars so obvious? The police ought to use beaten -up little Fiats.


My Review:

This was undoubtedly one of the most frustrating, grueling, and confusing books I have ever read, while at the same time, I was unable or unwilling to walk away in defeat. This book held some type of evil voodoo that kept me in place, although it also made me itch. Yet I could not and would not let it get the best of me! In trying to make sense of the disjointed ramblings I read slowly but will confess to becoming utterly lost several times within the incoherent and disturbing narrative. And it was quite distressing at times as the highly intelligent main character possessed a wild and vivid imagination and was prone to hallucination, delusions, paranoia, and lost time. Some of the issues I struggled with the most were: figuring out which events were real and which were merely delusional; and which one of this bizarre clan was the most impaired. No spoilers - but it turns out, they all were more than a bit off the charts with a vile and severely warped family dynamic. The plot was elaborate and the writing was gripping, intriguing, maddening, and frequently hard to follow. While on one hand, I’d like to give him a good pinch or ten, I also have to give this confounding and fiendishly twisted wordsmith his props as I couldn’t leave it alone, his clever tale continued to beckon until I saw those two most highly desired words of the day – The End.

[The Literary Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you take your horror eerie, unsettling and hold the gore, grab this one. An added bonus is the book within the book like Russian nesting maelstroms of horror. Prepare to meet Mary Katherine Blackwood's younger brother. The one she liked.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 bumped up

http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2018...

It took me some time to readjust to the real world after reading this book, which threw me completely off kilter during my time in the head of the main character, not always a comfortable place to be. There are a number of unsettling things about this story, not so much because of what happens here, but rather because it left me somewhat disoriented throughout, trying to discern what exactly was real and what was not. In a mind that's filled with fragments of memory, strange dreams and living in a house filled with shadows and "strange echoes," it can get tricky sometimes. To his great credit, the author immerses us in atmosphere from page one and doesn't let up, ratcheting up the tension until it actually becomes a relief to finally make it to the end and breathe again.

I know it's incredibly cliché to say this, but this book really does work in layers, and they are beyond-skillfully crafted here in this author's debut novel. Secrets abound, memories come to light, and even then we're still not sure that we're dealing in reality. While there is a LOT happening here that will jump out at you, it is, in a very big way, a book that deals with the question of perception, to the point where everything has to be questioned. The first time through was unsettling; the second time through I gained much more of an appreciation for what he's done here. Not only has he produced a rather chilling tale, but if you look at (and are familiar with) the all of the literary references, you can definitely see how these have helped to shape his own narrative in terms of both style and story; at the same time, this is clearly an original work. And without going into any sort of detail, I'll just say that my favorite references scattered throughout this novel are those relating to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein -- to me they were the most appropriate of all, but I won't say why because I don't want to wreck anything.

Don't expect a quick thrill here, because that's not what's going in in this book. It is a story that both intelligent readers and literary-minded authors can enjoy. And if this is his first offering, I'll be the first one in line for the next.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was warned by the author before reading this, that it would be different than what I was used to reading; more of a slow creepy burn type of book. True to his word, this exactly how it read, and how I would describe it. The author does a fantastic job of creating the different personalities of each character in the book, which adds to the overall feel.. To aid in this, I found that the way the antagonist was developed furthered the theme of the book. I had a strong distrust and dislike of the antagonist, which I feel was brought about by the authors detailed writing. While reading this book, I was enthralled in the deepening mystery, always reading further, wanting to know more. Barsa created a well written story that can draw in the reader, leaving them pondering what will happen next! Great first novel Michael!

[Marjorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milo and his sister Klara have received the news that their parents have died in a car crash. Their father was a highly acclaimed horror fiction author. The car crash may or may not have been an accident. Milo continues to work on his model Greek warships, while his sister Klara turns her attentions to redoing the grounds of their home. She hires a gardener named Henri. Milo feels he knows this gardener and then realizes that the gardener reminds him of one of his father’s fictional psychotic characters. Are his father’s fictional creations now coming to life?

This book is chock full of unreliable characters and you never know who or what to believe. This is one very dysfunctional family for sure. The author has done a fine job of creating a haunting, unstable atmosphere that keeps the readers on their toes. While there’s a lot of dark humor in the book, I found it at times to be quite frightening and spooky and I don’t frighten or spook easily! One of the blurbs described the book as malevolent and that’s exactly how I felt about it. The story’s malevolence seemed to leap off the page and surround me with its evil. This book and its characters grabbed ahold of me and wouldn’t let go. A shiver just went up my spine just thinking about it.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most well-written books I’ve read, with a prose style that manages to be elegant, simple, and incredibly propulsive at the same time. It’s also unnerving, unsettling, sometimes scary, and always highly enjoyable—and it’s all shot-through with the funniest dark humor I’ve ever encountered. Milo Crane is a thoroughly unreliable narrator who leaves the reader constantly on edge and uncertain, until the very end, about what is real, what is imagined, and just how many horrors really filled the Crane house in rural Vermont. I could not put the book down and found myself both sympathetic to and repulsed by Milo--sometimes at the same time. This is an extraordinary book and Milo is an extraordinary author of his own story.

[Ctgt · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those books that keeps you off kilter.....dream, nightmare, imagination or reality.

A narrator that I could never really put my finger on.

A family with a dark past.



7/10

The author and I are casual friends here on GR.
Make of that what you will.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to agree with Michael, sometimes love happens all at once. I was going through the submissions inbox, and the prospects were getting quite dismal when I came across Michael's query letter and manuscript. Within the first few pages I was sending an enthusiastic email to Mark about The Garden of Blue Roses, that read along the lines of "This is the one!! This is the one!!" with a few more exclamation points. Then I proceeded to read the entire manuscript in one sitting. I had read Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in a Castle the previous week, and the resemblances in tone and cadence are uncanny. I have loved this book even more with each reading (I think I'm at 5), and being a small part of ushering it into the world has been one of the highlights of my year.
If you would like to be swept up into a suspenseful, atmospheric narrative with achingly beautiful syntax so light on the page you'll feel like you're floating, Michael's writing will not disappoint. He had me at 'I was a Greek that night'...

so much love,
Melanie

[Jim Dooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technical details first. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

This is a classic horror tale that is beautifully structured ... and has often fallen by the wayside in this era of having a monster jump out of a dark corner with every new chapter. The writing style is similar to classic Asian ghost stories or “The Jolly Corner” by Henry James, that is:

* I did something terrible or of which I’m not proud;

* Did it attract the attention of something evil, or am I only imagining it?;

* Oh, no. It’s real ... and it’s worse than I imagined!

I call this “seeping horror.” It doesn’t leap off of the page to startle you. Instead, it seeps in a little bit more and a little bit more until the Reader is suddenly mired in it along with the unfortunate character. These are the “real” chills because they seem is if they could happen to anyone in that situation. I’ve encountered this many times in the better Lovecraft stories, or “The Judge’s House” by Bram Stoker. Like THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES, they require a little time to create and reinforce the atmosphere. For the absorbed Reader, the rewards quickly follow.

The writer makes reference to a number of other classic horror works, such as FRANKENSTEIN (a favorite of mine) and DRACULA. This is appropriate because there is a similar theme of life among decay. There is also an exploration of the desire to feel Valued ... and the fear of being truly Alone. These provide an excellent doorway into the soul of the central character, Milo. Milo is a beautifully drawn, multi-dimensional creation who inspires empathy even while deliberating about unwholesome subjects.

Klara, Milo’s sister, views the world from the outside and longs to be a part of it. When her opportunity arrives, will it bring disaster or freedom? A device that I very much appreciated was getting to know her through a series of letters. This not only provided essential backstory, but also caused me to reflect on many of her actions that had transpired before.

The device of letters and a bit later, a diary, not only links to the famous storytelling method found in DRACULA, but is especially appropriate because both young people live in the shadow of their recently deceased father, acclaimed horror writer, John Crane. His is a presence that is all pervasive.

I will not go into details here, but I have a strong admiration for the ending. The writer does not flinch from taking this tale directly to its inescapable conclusion. It was intense and, best of all, wasn’t the product of a last-minute revelation thrown together to explain everything. I came up with three possible resolutions. All of them were wrong. The writer’s was much better than mine.

THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES is a gift to the fan of classic horror literature. If you take special pleasure from being immersed in a story, I Highly Recommend this one.

[Paula W · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of you who prefer your gothic horror novels to have more psychological creepiness than blood and gore, this might be the one for you.

It certainly had all the things I love:
1.) A probably unreliable narrator
2.) Things that happened in the past that the reader slowly figures out
3.) This sense of not knowing if something is real or a dream or psychosis
4.) A damn well written story.

Congrats on your debut novel, Michael. This was smart, funny, clever, and creepy as hell. I loved it!

[Darin Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received as an ARC from the publisher. My blurb: "Barsa's prose in The Garden of Blue Roses is so crafted, so elegant, that when it whispers its disturbing moments to you, they're as welcome as a charming dinner guest."

[Anthony Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Garden of Blue Roses is a truly great read. Firmly rooted into the tradition of Gothic Horror, it finds its own distinct groove by neither conforming to the genre slavishly nor egotistically trying to reinvent it. While we're living in an age of instability wherein technology has replaced a great deal of authentic human interaction, leaving us apparently vulnerable to AI, mass surveillance, amidst a long list of other phenomena that present great potential fodder for a "modern horror," there's still something that unnerves us about a creepy old house or a mysterious stranger. Because of this I think Barsa succeeds in writing a modern Gothic novel by not trying to be modern. I actually found it strangely comforting to be made uneasy in the old fashioned way, i.e. in front of a warm fire in a country house as opposed to in front of the bluish magnetized glare of a TV, computer or phone screen.

Barsa’s writing has a discipline and more importantly a sincerity that makes it easy to trust him. That authenticity clearly comes from a genuine love of story itself. He is free from any compulsion to “wow” us or prove himself with the strength of his writing or the depth/originality of his imagination, which I find the vast majority of Neo Gothic writers do. He is clear on what genre conventions he chooses to adopt and where he wants to carve his own path.

This is a real achievement for for this subgenre, which requires certain aesthetic characteristics or conventions that can easily veer into cliches. Barsa doesn’t do this. Instead he finds a convincing, engaging and authentic sweet spot that is all his own.

This is thanks, to a large extent, to vivid characters endowed with depth and specificity. When they feel something, we either feel it with them or, at the very least, take those feelings seriously. They have plausible and genuinely interesting wounds and/or perspectives so Barsa never has to resort to injecting anything artificial e.g. eccentricity, sassiness, flamboyance etc. to prop them up or keep the engine of his story humming.

Barsa’s authenticity is apparent first paragraph first chapter. loaded with descriptive detail, it’s clear that Barsa is relating what he sees in his mind’s eye and not simply churning out visual decorations to pad up the paragraphs. Anyone can riff on the details of a creepy old mansion and rearrange genre staples like LEGO pieces into something we’ve all seen before. Barsa takes us somewhere different without going so far that he betrays the sub-genre in a desperate attempt to stand out.

Barsa’s authenticity also allows him to refer to subjects such as history, literature and the aesthetics of horticulture without being pretentious.

Again, a truly great read.

Note: I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for fans of horror, psychological and suspense thrillers.

Milo is pleased that his sister Klara has returned home after the failure of her marriage and attempted escape from their parents hold. There is a real sense of creepiness and unease which seeps from within the claustrophobic familial walls, and of an unnerving comprehension of impending doom. Shortly after Klara’s homecoming their parent’s are killed in a car accident on their way to a book reading.

‘The bodies were in the basement, on slabs of steel—Mother with shards of her sunglasses still nestled in her platinum bob and Father in his tweedy, seedy best. "I think I see Father breathing," I whispered to Klara. She gave me a stern look and told me to hush. I would not. Instead I began poking him in the face to wake him up. Even when his head flopped to one side and his jaw hung open crookedly, I laughed and said: "What an actor!" I didn't trust his death. Father was an author. He was words. You can't kill words—can't lock them up and drive them off a cliff.’

Full of foreboding benevolence ‘The Garden Of Blue Roses’ is interspersed with a playfulness and dark humour displayed through the odd behaviour and interaction of its socially inept narrator. Milo is naive and unable to function ‘normally’ outside of his family environment. He just doesn’t understand the rules of social engagement and its certainly apparent, almost immediately, that there’s something just not right about him. Is he a creation of his father’s twisted nurturing? Or, perhaps his mother’s distant and neglectful aloofness? Maybe both have played a part.

“Beauty without context. I saw how Klara hung on his every word, how her breath fluttered like an excited bird’s.”

I simply adored the stylishly beautiful writing and above is an example of just one sentence which froze me in motion as I too felt the heart flutter and breath trembling of Klara and her idolatry emotions.

Klara becomes fixated with Henri a gardener she’s hired to transform ‘the grounds’ into something spectacular in remembrance of their parents. Milo doesn’t like Henri. He doesn’t trust him. He knows he’s an evil character who has climbed out from the pages of his father’s infamous novel about a psychotic murderer.

Barsa has created a haunting, ambiguous tale that kept me second guessing right the way through with such a highly dysfunctional family and unreliable characters. It was impossible to know who or what to believe. This is an exceptionally well written ‘literary’ debut comparable to such titles in the modern gothic genre as, Andrew Michel Hurley’s ‘The Loney’, and the chilling ‘A Headful Of Ghosts’ by Paul Tremblay.

‘The Garden of Blue Roses’ is a gothic novel with a difference. The subtle fun element lifts the mood in parts. It worked brilliantly and I absolutely loved its uniqueness.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed something completely different to read and so picked up my Goodreads friend's novel The Garden of Blue Roses. I found it to be a stylish, creepy story with an unreliable narrator who may be insane. Thankfully, the atmosphere of horror and mayhem is mostly in the narrator's imagination, but for a final bloody deed. The story moves at a good clip, nicely suspenseful.

The novel opens with the narrator Milo and his sister having just lost their parents in a freak car accident. Their father was a well-known horror writer. Both children are damaged by their childhood with a distant mother and father who used them in various nefarious ways.

Klara decides to create a garden. Milo does not support her idea, and worse, he distrusts the gardener she has hired who seems to use his charms to manipulate women clients. Milo is convinced that Henri is mimicking one of his father's murderous creations.

With many twists and turns, the plot resolves without just deserts, the wily villain mastering all

[Doug · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can't fathom where all the four and five star reviews are coming from (friends of the author, perhaps?), as I thought this was pretty dreadful in both conception and execution. It is so lethargic as to be somnambulistic, and the plot, what little there is, is so rife with holes as to be laughable (e.g, a best-selling famous horror writer that writes in rhyming couplets - that don't ACTUALLY rhyme? People writing letters, rather than emailing or texting to each other, in the present day?). If there was an iota of anything either original or dread-inducing, I might have been generous and given it 2 stars, but I should have trusted my instincts and DNF'd it after the first 20 pages. Great cover, however.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was suspenseful, eerie, creepy, and it had me on edge. I LOVED it! I definitely felt a Shirley Jackson vibe when reading it. There's something definitely a bit "off" with Milo Crane and his sister Klara. And talk about an unreliable narrator in Milo. I was so unsure about what reality was in this novel, and even the time it took place in seemed hazy at times. Michael Barsa has written a novel I won't soon forget. Highly recommended!

[Steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Horrifying. And not in the good way. He whole thing actually made me sick. I’m sorry I kept reading this novel.
2.5 stars for inventiveness....? Not really recommended.

[Barbara J. Gore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! Well written. Characters come alive. I can’t say I liked the characters, but they are well developed. The story has twists and turns that bring the conclusion to an expected ending. The only criticism I have would be the tremendous detail about Milo’s model building. I supposed it emphasized his attention to details. Overall, Milo is one weird dude! But I would recommend this book to other readers.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll say it flat out ...this is a strange book and a book that took me a bit to get into and make complete sense of. It's also a book that not everyone is going to like--because of that strangeness, its unreliable and fairly unlikable main character, and the fact that really, there are no truly likable characters here, just some less unlikable than others. All that being said, I liked it, I really did, and I found myself in turn fascinated with, repelled by, and oddly protective of Milo and Klara Crane--the two main characters. (For movie fans, I picture Milo in my mind as a cross between a young Anthony Perkins in Psycho and Bud Court in Harold and Maude and young Milo as the kid who played Damien in The Omen and Klara as Jennifer Jason Leigh in Delores Claiborne.) The Garden of Blue Roses definitely has a strong Shirley Jackson Gothic, creepy sibling vibe that is reminiscent and yet very different from We Have Always Lived at the Castle--which happens to be a favorite of mine.

I don't want to give away any more details than are already in the blurb, but lets just say that this is family dysfunction at its creepiest. The horror here is not in-your-face, it's psychological, so more dark and chilling than truly scary--a tone that starts from the first page with the shrill blast of an old clanging phone ringing in a large, spooky house and an accident on an icy road, then builds the tension, page by page until the very end with the plot, and the Crane family's secrets are cleverly unfolded with dark humor and some great twists. There were a few times when things went over my head and I had to go back and read passages again to figure out what was happening, but it was worth it. This is Barsa's first book and if you like smart Gothic and literary fiction that leans into horror, suspense, strange but well-drawn characters, and dark family secrets, you might just enjoy it As for me, I'm going to add it with its gorgeous dark blue cover to my shelves and wait for Barsa to write some more.

You can see my review and a recipe inspired by the book here: https://kahakaikitchen.blogspot.com/2...

Note: A review copy of "The Garden of Blue Roses" was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.