#BookReview ‘Magnum Opus’ by Caitlin Marceau

About the book…

Charlotte Curran is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure her newest book is a best seller… even if that means murdering her best friend.

Nobody suspects her of killing renowned author Kim Lavoie, but when Charlotte starts seeing Kim everywhere she turns, she quickly realizes it’s more than just her guilty conscience haunting her. With each passing day, Kim’s judging gaze grows more difficult to escape.

Magnum Opus is a dark look at the price of fame and the legacy we leave behind.

Published by Timber Ghost Press, ‘Magnum Opus’ is a neat little short novel of horror, suspense and haunting.

All Charlotte wants is some level of success that she has seen her best friend, and fellow writer, Kim attaining, and not sacrificing her moral stance on ‘pandering’ to the masses.

What Charlotte writes is serious fiction, whilst Kim writes novels which regularly hit the best seller chart….and stay there.

Full of hope for her newest release, Charlotte and Kim are celebrating as only best friends can, until Kim let’s it drop that both their books will be out at the same time.

Suddenly, the bloom is off the rose and what should have been a night to remember, turns into one which will haunt Charlotte for the rest of her life.

Kim’s death, providing her an opportunity to step out of the shadows and been seen as her own self made success story was never going to be Charlotte’s fate, as from one little act to the next, her conscience is interminably pricked and teased to the point of madness.

How much of this haunting is conscience laden, and how much is her wrestling with the consequences of her inaction on that fateful night is debatable. The tension is neatly raised as Charlotte is asked to write the foreword in Kim’s post humous novel, to speak about their friendship and what they meant to each other.

It is a Poe-esque dance of malevolence as Charlotte’s wishful thinking becomes something beyond her control, everywhere and everything reminds her that her great achievement will always be tied to Kim.

How this will be resolved when ambition and greed, plus the way that women are so particularly, inexplicably good at being brutally envious in a professional setting?

Well that is not for me to say, but I found this a very satisfying tale of getting what you want, at any cost and somehow not in the way you wished for…..

About the author….

Caitlin Marceau is an author and lecturer living and working in Montreal. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing, is an active member of both the Horror Writers Association and the Quebec Writers’ Federation, and spends most of her time writing horror and experimental fiction.

She’s been published for journalism, poetry, as well as creative non-fiction, and has spoken about horror literature at several Canadian conventions.

Her debut collection, Palimpsest, is available from Ghost Orchid Press and her second collection, A Blackness Absolute, is slated for publication later this year. If she’s not covered in ink or wading through stacks of paper, you can find her ranting about issues in pop culture or nerding out over a good book

Links-http://www.caitlinmarceau.ca/

Twitter @CaitlinMarceau @press_ghost