Psychological Thriller by Dawn Hosmer
Color helps to express light. Not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artists brain—Henri Matisse
Our human fascination not only with light, but with color, makes sense at least for those of us who can see. We live in a world centered around vision and the ability to see. At the same time, it is amazing to consider that what we can see with the human eye is only a tiny silver of the full electromagnetic spectrum. The portion that makes up visible light is from 4×10^14 through 8×10^14 Hz (or approx. 380-740 nanometers who to prefer to look at it in wavelengths). It can be broken down into 7 basic waves:
- Radio
- Micro
- Infrared
- Visible
- Ultraviolet
- Xray
- Gamma
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts—Marcus Aurelius
Dawn’s book is a fast-paced thriller about Tessa, a young woman with a gift—or a curse, depending on perspective. When she touches someone, she at times absorbs a piece of them in the form of color. Each color has a different meaning. She might take on a memory, emotion, personality trait or talent from the person she touches. In the meantime, she loses a fragment of herself in the process. After so many years, she no longer knows how much of her psyche is herself and how much belongs to people she has contacted along the way.
Estranged from her wealthy family, she lives in the small college town of Chandlersville. Multiple women have gone missing/turned up murdered. Tessa inadvertently touches the murderer in a crowd during a search for the most recent missing girls. In an instant, she takes on the murderer’s desires and proclivities. Now Tessa must find the killer before she loses herself completely
I’ve always been a fast reader, and when I get really into a book, I can polish one off in a couple of hours. I decided to bring Dawn Hosmer’s thriller, Bits and Pieces as a book to read on the plane. I think I set a new record. I started it as the plane pushed back from the gate. I finished it 20 minutes before landing, putting me at about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Yep, I got pretty into it. The downside is that there were some pretty disturbing/triggering scenes. When I get to those in something I am reading or writing, I like to get up and pace. Kind of hard to do on an airplane at 30 K feet with a drink cart in the aisle. I am sure the guy seated next to me thought I was nuts as did most of the flight attendants.
Art is to console those who have been broken by life—Vincent Van Gogh
Dawn uses first person point of view in Bits and Pieces. From a personal perspective I feel this can be difficult to pull off. I have read many books where the author attempts to write in first person only to botch it by telling me things the character couldn’t know unless they were psychic or by dropping out of first person. Dawn pulls it off seamlessly. She embeds the reader fully into the mind of Tess. In the process she creates a relatable and believable young woman who is struggling with not only this strange gift she has been given, but her place in society. She sees herself as a freak, who doesn’t dare touch someone for fear of losing a piece of herself (she almost reminds me of Rogue from the X-Men).
One of the fascinating aspects of Dawn’s book is Tessa’s use of art to deal with her gift and with the struggles it brings. It is well documented that art is a therapeutic tool. I know for myself, my writing is a means of expressing things I cannot say out loud.
Tessa paints the things that she “sees” at the urging of her therapist. As she devolves into the mind of the killer, she paints the women he has killed in great detail. This was one of the most disturbing yet exquisite parts to read. I would love for Dawn to hold a painting themed night based on this scene where we could get together and everyone paint what we think these pictures should look like. (Maybe this is something we can suggest to Gestalt Media, Dawn?)
Dawn also pulls off some unique twists at the end that will have the reader saying, “wait, what?” But when they re-read, they will realize the foreshadowing and clues were there all along. At the risk of spoilers, I will refrain from delving too deep. I will say I had the feeling that something was off with the character in question. I just thought it was going to go in a slightly different direction.
The one character I struggled with was actually the love interest, Jonas. I felt at times his reactions were incongruent to the scenes. That being said it might be due to the plot line/suspense Dawn was trying to keep going in the story. Once again, at the risk of spoilers, I will refrain from going into detail.
Overall, this was a fantastic story that had me on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait to see where Dawn takes us next with her writing.
Thanks for reading! My next review will be of Hanson Oak’s They Came from the Sea, they Went to the Stars, part of the Dark Tides Anthology. I will doing a few more blogs on my fall trip to Dawson City, and our next years projects for the cabin in Chicken.