Blog Tour: The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce – Tom Gillespie*

A spiralling obsession. A missing wife. A terrifying secret. Will he find her before it’s too late?

When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, the police put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively trying to solve for months. Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife.

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About the Author

Tom Gillespie grew up in a small town just outside Glasgow. After completing a Masters in English at Glasgow University, he spent the next ten years pursuing a musical career as a singer/songwriter, playing, recording and touring the UK and Europe with his band. He now lives in Bath with his wife, daughter and hyper-neurotic cat, where he works at the university as an English lecturer. Tom writes long and short stories. His stories have appeared in many magazines, journals and e-zines. He is co-author of Glass Work Humans-an anthology of stories and poems, published by Valley Press.

Website

My thoughts:

This was a strange book indeed. I got very confused at one point over what was real and what was all in Jacob’s mind. There’s a woozy, disorientating feel to parts of the novel, reflecting the things Jacob is experiencing.

I’m also not 100% sure what happened to Ella or whether she was ever in Spain, this is a book that maybe needs more than one reading to fully understand all the allusions and illusions.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.