Shape shifters, Hungary and Murder
The String Diaries – Stephen Lloyd Jones[1]
The thrill of the chase, the fear of being chased, murder, history and the mythical creatures known as shape shifters. A tablespoon of one, a dash of others, a perfect mix and you end up with the string diaries. Stephen Lloyd James did an incredible job of writing this story.
The book starts off with young Hannah, driving madly into the night. Her husband, wounded is sitting in the car next to her and their daughter is soundly asleep on the back seat. It’s not until they reach their destination, a safe house, that she notices how badly her husband is wounded. Panic starts to take a hold of her, but she manages to hold together long enough to scout their safe house. Then she transfers her husband and daughter safely inside, secures the place again and gets to work. When all the work is done, there is finally time for her to think, and for the reader to gain more insight into the thrilling and mindboggling scenes they have just witnessed. The writing is that good that you can feel the fear oozing out of the pages, bound by nothing but the pure power of Hannah’s will.
Slowly but surely you learn what has caused that horrible situation that Hannah and her family have been put in. The reader learns things that Hannah does not know, that not many people know. This is thanks to the writing of many different storylines, all telling the same story: the story of Jakab, whom we first meet in 18th century Hungary as the son of the member of a special elite, and his obsession with the young women in Hannah’s family. We learn more about Jakab, learn what he is, what it means, how it works. Jakab is not just the son of a member of the elite: his father is a Hosszú Élet. This means you have the ability to change your shape and appearance, becoming the other person entirely. Jakab however, is slightly different from the rest: the change is not as easy for him as it is for the others, yet this never stops him.
Throughout the story, the reader is led back to the beginning, all the way to the 18th century. We follow the evolvements of his obsessions, we see the impact it has on these young families, we feel for them, with them. But Jakab is not portrayed as purely evil; once he was just a young man, rejected by his peers and abused by the society once they knew who he was. He became the necessary evil to survive, and then did nothing but chase the object of his desire, through the various generations of her family, until finally, Hannah decides to take one final stand, dragging the monster down with her, rather than letting her daughter face the same horrors.
The string diaries is an incredible strong story, which will keep your bed light burning until the small hours of the morning. It has everything you could ever seek in a good thriller, and I could definitely not stop reading it. If I did have to stop, I kept wondering what would happen next, who would Jakab become next..?