Reviewed by Keith Mbuya for Readers' Favorite

“It has chosen you.” These were the words the strange woman at the antique shop said to young Arlene as she stared at a music box. It felt like the perfect gift for her fourth birthday. It was also the same day that Arlene’s mother and brother died in a tragic fire. Since that day Arlene never looked forward to her birthdays. Now a thirty-four-year-old widow living in Grey Fields, Missouri, after losing her husband three years earlier, Arlene somehow understood the purpose of the music box. Without warning, she started experiencing strange dreams, episodes of visions, and activities in her house. The fact that she was smitten by her new neighbor next door and that she was slowly learning the horrible truth about the people of Grey Fields did not help. Get yourself Simon Kippax’s Arlene and the Music Box to discover what happens to Arlene.

Arlene and the Music Box by Simon Kippax will have lovers of slow-burn mystery novels laced with a compelling tale of loss, grief, love, romance, fate, rocky marriages, small-town gossip, slavery, racism, magic, and evil hooked from cover to cover. Simon’s vivid descriptions bring the small town of Grey Fields to life, capturing the mood and setting of mid-twentieth-century North America. It felt as if I was right there next to the main players, watching the events unfold. The edge-of-the-seat suspense had me flipping through page after page. Simon has the knack of deriving humor from the most mundane situations, like when Arlene’s cat was curling around her ankles and she could not tell whether the cat was trying to soothe her or was just hungry. Simon depicts the protagonists' emotions and their complex qualities compellingly, giving them authenticity.