Rose’s take on the thriller formula is spiced up by a touch of melodrama: altogether, a satisfying blend.
Second-novelist Rose (author of the much-publicized, originally self-published Lip Service, 1999) offers a well-crafted study of infidelity, wrapped within the context of a psychothriller.
Thirty-nine-year-old psychotherapist Jordan Sloan has a life of companionable compromise: She lives on the second floor of a brownstone shared with Robert, the husband she separated from five years ago; she begrudgingly accepts her teenaged daughter Lilly’s increasingly obsessive interest in Zen Buddhism and in the boyfriend who spurred it on—all this while trying to put the ghosts of the past to rest, not so easy now that one of those ghosts is being released from prison. At 19, Jordan was secretly dating Dan Mallory, an apprentice at her father’s jewelry store. When Mallory was fired (because of the relationship), he returned to the shop, gun in hand, and murdered Jordan’s father right before her eyes. Now that he’s about to be freed, Jordan, with good reason, fears that Mallory may be after her: she’s had a string of ominous phone calls, and thinks that that someone might be following her. Meanwhile, Lilly, a budding photographer following in her famous father’s footsteps, has captured the same shadowy figure in the background of a series of photos. Unfortunately, no one believes Jordan: her D.A. brother assures her that Mallory was a model prisoner; and her daughter chastises her for being so suspicious and spreading negative energy. Within this context, the author introduces the questions of adultery and forgiveness. Robert’s unfaithfulness was the sole reason for their separation, and now Jordan is ready to finalize the divorce, even though the love between the two is evident and Robert is seeking reconciliation. But can Jordan trust him again? This fast-paced tale climaxes with Robert in a coma from a murder attempt—and Mallory closing in for revenge.
Rose’s take on the thriller formula is spiced up by a touch of melodrama: altogether, a satisfying blend.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-0645-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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