Sleep, Pale Sister (Book 1 of Summer Challenge)

Well, I'm finally knee-deep into Sleep, Pale Sister and everyone was right, it's definitely creepy. Very creepy, gothic, hallucinogenic, mind-tripping…you get the idea.. But the writing is beautiful. This is definitely (so far) on par with Chocolat and Blackberry Wine (my fave Harris EVAH). Case in point:

I remember her cool, strong hand against my hair. Her face in the lamplight, warm and golden with amber and chypre. Her voice, low and calm, singing without words in time to her rhythmic stroking of my hair. Low adown…low adown. Henry was a bad dream, melting away now into a million little teardrops of light. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a heartbeat stronger than my own: my heart was light as a dandelion clock, counting off moments into a warm summer night like silken seeds. My eyes were closed, gentle dream-thoughts spindling away into the welcome darkness of sleep…..

and

As I look at my name and the letters that follow it I am filled with a vast blankness. As if this Henry Chester, painter, twice exhibited at the Royal Academy, were not myself but some ill-defined figment of somebody's imagination, the cork to a bottle containing a genie of delicate malevolence that permeates my being and launches me into a realm of perilous adventure, in search of the pale, terrified ghost of myself.

So lovely.  But I'm going to have to read like a fiend this weekend to finish it this week.  Can't think of a much better way to spend my weekend.  Except for watching Pride and Prejudice, but I haven't received it yet.   I hope Monday.  Hope, hope, hope.