I was fascinated by the premise of this debut novel, where a young Lithuanian woman named Magdalena is trying to escape an unusual gift/curse. She can see words written on people’s skin – banal details or profound warnings – and she moves to a country where she can’t speak the language to get some respite from the onslaught of information. As she slowly learns English, she stops wearing her glasses in an attempt to avoid the words on faces and resorts to stumbling around short-sightedly rather than seeing clearly.

I expected the novel to follow Magdalena exclusively, but her story is mixed with two others – Neil, a history student who has Magdalena’s name written under his eye; and his father Richard, who is haunted by a memory of his mother visiting him as a child, even though all the biographers of the now famous writer and beauty say she abandoned him as a baby refusing to ever look at him. The linkages between their lives are developed as the book progresses.

I’ll be honest, I never much cared for Richard, and his passages dragged the novel down for me. Even though he had a better storyline than Neil, he was such a needy drip that I couldn’t warm to him or care about the ‘mystery’ of his mother. I would have liked to have spent more time with Magdalena; her beautiful tragic friend Lena; her mother and her grandmother and left the boys out of it. There is some great writing here, but there is also a lot of meandering and loose ends. It is worth reading, but I can’t say that I was wholly satisfied. That said – the premise was intriguing, the parts I enjoyed were excellent, poignant and haunting. I will be keeping an eye on what this author produces next.

Thank you to the publisher for the advance copy via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
This is truly a breathtakingly beautiful book. Even thinking of it now, I get goosebumps. There aren't many novel I slow to read because I don't want it to end; this was one of those books.
A rich family saga with magical elements, the interwoven relationships of the characters are so layered and true, it really did take my breath away. This book has everything: mystery, romance, realisation of the self, heartbreak, redemption. It's a glorious read. I miss Magdalena in particular already. She is written so honestly, she could walk off the page. 
I cannot thank you enough for this joyful read and cannot wait recommend to purchase copies for the library service. My only gripe is the cover, as it feels marketed for YAD readers and I strongly feel this would appeal to adults across the spectrum.

I really hate writing bad reviews, but I honestly don't have a choice here.  

I was so excited about this book, the concept came across as unique and interesting and while the concept was interesting this book was so badly written that I was unable to enjoy it.  The book was so slow that it took me ages to read, the sentence structure was terrible and the characters were flat.

I am so disapointed by this book that I would never be able to recommended it to my clients and social media followers.

A strange, meandering novel, with moments of real beauty, but a little bit too much confusing waffle!

There was much about Indelible that I really enjoyed, and sadly, some that I didn't. 

Firstly, let's start with the premise itself, which really lured me in. A girl from Lithuania finds that she can 'read' people's histories and futures on their skin. Lovely idea - I was totally sold on it. 

And indeed, that aspect of the book worked really well. I loved the character of Magdalena, I adored the idea of being able to 'see' random phrases like tattoos on people's skin, and I think the idea was executed brilliantly, in a very unsettling, haunting way. 

Whenever the book was focused on Magdalena (one third of the time) things were good. Then we moved on to Neil, and I felt my interest flag a little. Not because he wasn't a good character; in fact I liked his bumbling personality - it's always nice to see a male protagonist that is a bit more than your average dishy Mr Nice Guy. However, his trajectory path in the book just felt a little bit flat for me, plus he kept doing things that didn't seem very plausible. I mean, heading off to Lithuania to find a girl you'd only met once, but not calling her first (despite having her number)? It just didn't seem very rational to me. 

I'm afraid I found the third perspective in the book, Neil's dad, even more frustrating. It was a shame, because I loved the idea of this man tracking down the truth about his absent, celebrity mother - such a good idea. But it just didn't quite come off. 

And the ending - oh I would have liked to see more! Again, it just meandered a bit, and left me feeling a tad unsatisfied. 

Overall - I'd still say it's worth reading, because my word, it's such a good idea for a plot. LOVE the concept. Like the characters too - just wish the narrative had been tightened and that it had been a bit more dynamic. I'd definitely look out for more from this author though, as she clearly has great ability. (Maybe this was a case of, it's not you... it's me!).

This book is not what I expected and I couldn't finish it. I'm not going to review it as it was my mistake in requesting. My apologies and thank you for allowing me to try it.

A great read; captivating and memorable.  I'll definitely be recommending this to friends!

When I first came across this book two things really struck me: the cover showing the woman whose face and eyes we can't see, and the blurb; the story of a girl who reads the invisible words of people's lives on their skins. Imagine that. If you could see someone's life story etched onto their skin? How would you cope? You would see their hopes, their dreams, their pains, their sufferings and so much more!

So I was surprised when I started reading to find that the book didn't just follow this girl's story. It followed the lives of three people: of Richard whose chapters are written in the first person perspective, and then in the third person perspective are chapters following his son Neil and Magdalena who is the girl who can read our skin. 

I think this initially threw me for a loop and is probably the primary reason for not loving this book as much as I thought I would. I just wanted to know more about the words on people's skin. I was expecting Magdalena to be the primary focus but this really was Richard's story. However, once I got used to the layout I became fascinated by the story and I wondered how they would interlink. 

What followed were incredibly poignant stories, especially for Richard and Magdalena. We learn of their pasts and of their presents. The book felt very much like a catharsis for each character. A process of discovery and acceptance mixed with truth and myth. And it was interspersed with moments of such beautiful poignancy. However, at times I found some of the events quite tangential to the main story lines and that detracted a little from the overall beauty. I found this to be quite a slow burning reading experience even though it is already quite a short book in my opinion. And for some reason I could never accept that most of this book was set in 2008. I don't know... It just seemed too other worldly for that and the modern setting somewhat jarred with me. 

This book just was a little bit frustrating. Because it's all there. Everything I want in a book is all there but it just needed.... More!!!!! I can't quite explain what was missing for me. I found it too easy to put this book down at times but every time I picked it back up I was immediately lost in the words. It had this sort of quiet magic, an understated charm. The writing was simply beautiful. The plot; gloriously meandering, and the three stories of the main characters were so delicately and carefully interwoven that I could only compare them to the beauty of a fragile piece of stained glass that just reveals its true beauty to the world when the sun shines through at a certain angle. I wanted to love this book. Well I actually kinda did... Because when I reached the last page, the tears were glistening in my eyes. The emotion was there, the connection to the characters was there... but that extra something special was missing. 

This is a debut novel so I think that probably explains the 'missing something'. I will definitely read more by this author in future because if this book is anything to go by her future is very bright. 


*A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Indelible, Adelia Saunders

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  General fiction

I really wanted to like this book, it sounded so deliciously different, and reminded me a bit of Elizabeth Hunter’s Irin chronicles with the skin marking references, though of course instead of a few people having visible marking to others, only Magdalena sees what’s marked, no-one else. 

Once I started reading though..well, I just felt it was a disjointed rambling tale. Nothing seemed to really relate to anything else, we seemed to veer from one persons POV to the next, and I just felt lost, didn’t understand what was the point of what we were told. It felt like a story that led nowhere. 

The three main characters had a very tenuous connection, and I felt them to be kind of flat, I didn’t understand them, didn’t like them and just wasn’t interested in their spry or what would happen to them. 
I started flipping through at about 30% hoping it would get more interesting, looking for something that would hook me in to the story. I didn’t find it and DNF the novel. There’s too many books I will like to waste time on one I know I’m not going to.
 
For me it was a story that had so much fantastical potential but which turned out very different to what I expected from the description. I can see though that many others love it, clearly it resonated with many people but for me its just a fail. 

Stars: two, just one of those I didn’t like, didn’t understand but others love. Che sera...

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers