Review: Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

Pages: 368

Received: Received from Random House of Canada in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: July 17, 2012
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Goodreads Synopsis:

Summer seemed to arrive at that moment, with its mysterious mixture of salt, cold flesh and fuel.

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sunbleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha's Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. In the days following the end of the Second World War, the world seems to offer itself up, and the two women are on the cusp of their 'real lives': Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own young husband, Hughes, about to return from the war.

    

Soon the gilt begins to crack. Helena's husband is not the man he seemed to be, and Hughes has returned from the war distant, his inner light curtained over. On the brink of the 1960s, back at Tiger House, Nick and Helena--with their children, Daisy and Ed--try to recapture that sense of possibility. But when Daisy and Ed discover the victim of a brutal murder, the intrusion of violence causes everything to unravel. The members of the family spin out of their prescribed orbits, secrets come to light, and nothing about their lives will ever be the same.

  

Brilliantly told from five points of view, with a magical elegance and suspenseful dark longing, Tigers in Red Weather is an unforgettable debut novel from a writer of extraordinary insight and accomplishment.

My Review:

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this novel, a part of me was expecting some mystery along with a family working through things together. The premise really drew me in, especially with telling this story from five different points of view.

I did have a few issues in the beginning following each character's view because each person has their own story to tell. But as I continued with the book I understood how each story connected with the story as a whole. It was interesting to see what brought each character to where they are at the end of the story. Klaussman does a beautiful job with her descriptions of everything, each character has a distinct voice throughout the story.

The family dynamic was interesting, the closeness of each character and how they fit in the family. I was really interested in the story of Nick and Helena, I wanted to know what brought them back together after all those years and why they were acting in such a way (especially the way Helena was towards Nick).

I definitely was not expecting what came out of this novel and how everything ended. It was a lot more emotional for me than I was expecting, and it was beautifully constructed. Klaussman definitely had me hanging on, leaving many questions unanswered and then moving on to another story, but as you piece together each story, all those questions are eventually answered. I felt like I was doing a puzzle while reading this book.

This book was very well written and beautiful for a debut book. With beautiful descriptions of each character, Klaussman has woven together an amazing story about family life.