Michael "Blue" Whitley just wanted to enjoy a week of
vacation with his friends while visiting the home he
inherited from his grandmother. Blue wants to see the
home before he sells it as he has only a few memories of
his early years. However, what Blue discovers will change
everything.
THE GLITTERING WORLD is told from the perspective of four
characters, Blue and his three friends: Jason, Elisa, and
Gabe. I like the shifts in perspective as the story
delves into some very strange corners and the various
characters have different opinions as to what is going
on. Jason, in particular, is my favorite character as he
appears far more grounded in reality than the other three
(although this isn't necessarily a good thing in Robert
Levy's world!).
THE GLITTERING WORLD is a vividly imagined dark fantasy
tale that takes readers into a world that is truly alien
to us. Robert Levy thoroughly surprised me as THE
GLITTERING WORLD went off in directions I never
envisioned. The lines between reality and insanity
quickly blur as the reader is drawn into this strangely
compelling tale. I'm still not sure whether or not I
liked THE GLITTERING WORLD, but the journey itself is
intriguing.
In the tradition of Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the
Lane), Scott Smith (The Ruins), and Jason Mott (The
Returned), award-winning playwright Robert Levy spins a dark
tale of alienation and belonging, the familiar and the
surreal, family secrets and the search for truth in his
debut supernatural thriller.
When up-and-coming chef Michael “Blue” Whitley returns with
three friends to the remote Canadian community of his birth,
it appears to be the perfect getaway from New York. He soon
discovers, however, that everything he thought he knew about
himself is a carefully orchestrated lie. Though he had no
recollection of the event, as a young boy, Blue and another
child went missing for weeks in the idyllic, mysterious
woods of Starling Cove. Soon thereafter, his mother suddenly
fled with him to America, their homeland left behind.
But then Blue begins to remember. And once the shocking
truth starts bleeding back into his life, his closest
friends—Elisa, his former partner in crime; her stalwart
husband, Jason; and Gabe, Blue’s young and admiring
coworker—must unravel the secrets of Starling Cove and the
artists’ colony it once harbored. All four will face their
troubled pasts, their most private demons, and a mysterious
race of beings that inhabits the land, spoken of by the
locals only as the Other Kind...