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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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