Allison Books

It was not clear when I selected this book on line that it was the shorter version of the 5th edition. Since I am using this for assigned readings in a poetry course, none of the assigned pages are relevant and about 20% of the assigned poems are not in the shorter version, both of which shortcomings handicap my use of the book.

Just what I needed for my poetry class. Great notes on each page and at the back of the book.

The only index for this book that is viewable online is the index of a previous edition. Maybe the indexs are the same, but I bought the wrong edition because of the index confusion.

I got my book dirt cheap and fast and in excellent condition. Can't want more than that!!!!!

Chances are you're buying this book for a class. So what. READ IT. ENJOY IT. The editors of Norton have done the hard work for you--they've sifted through thousands and thousands and thousands of poems and found the ones that are the most moving, profound, revolutionary, intelligent, touching, startling, unique, and ground-breaking. All you have to do is READ THEM.
And let's say that you fancy yourself as someone who "just doesn't get poetry." Fear not, once you've gone through this book you will "get" poetry. It will be under your skin, in your heart, in your mind. Relax.

This first novel is in a series of mysteries featuring Egyptian sleuth Lord Meren-a close associate and confidante of young King Tutankhamen. The mystery follows Meren and his adopted son Kyren in solving a murder that happened in the place of Anubis-the most holy embalming facilty. As the murder has taken place in such a revered location, Tutankhamen instructs Meren to quickly solve the murder before trouble brews among the temple priests for the desecration.

What follows is a well written, interesting "slice of life" mystery that sweeps the reader into the daily lives of the ancient Egyptian upper class. Meren is a fun sleuth-multidimensional and a man with a tortured past. Kyren shares the crime solving equally and brings to the mix his own background-of poverty and cruelty before Lord Meren literally bought him from his abusive father. Entwined throughout the mystery is the side story of Meren and Tutankhamen-and Meren's attempts to keep the King alive while he is surround by traitors everywhere.

A great mystery for Historical or Egyptian fans and I would recommend-4 stars.

This was a great read for those interested in the time of King Tut and also a great mystery story...very enjoyable!

What can I say about my favovrite 'eyes and ears of pharoah"? ANY Lord Meren novel is worth reading

Our group made a visit to the King Tut exhibit at the Museum of natural History in Chicago and several thought that this was a good way to get the feel of the times.

Robinson's first mystery features Lord Meren, eyes and ears of the Pharoah Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt. A scribe, much disliked for his bullying habits, has been murdered in the Place of Anubis, the embalming sheds where the dead are prepared for rebirth.

Meren and his assistant, his adopted son, Kysen, scour the home of the scribe, his workplace, and the temples and holy places for clues to a crime with dire implications. Kysen visits the home of his battered youth, Meren balances the political against the merely criminal.

Robinson's pacing is a little too careful and measured, but she offers a wealth of colorful views into Egyptian life and political atmosphere and her characters are appealing.

A Bona Fide Gold Digger was good and I could tell the difference in Zane's writing and Ms. Hobbs' writing. It could have been better with just Ms. Hobbs style of writing. I enjoy Zane and Allison Hobbs but I DO NOT like them together. Double Dippin by Ms. Hobbs was absolutely fantastic! It was one of the best books that I've ever read (and I've been reading all types of books for 40+ years).

This book was just okay. Allison Hobbs books are normally captivating but this one was very slow and really did not have a point. It took til the last few pages of the book for the book to actually hit a climax. Her books a can normally read in a day or two this one took me a week

I didnt like the book at all! It could have been more interesting but it was so boring it almost put me to sleep, especially after reading the "Mistress In The Game" now thats a good book! HATED IT!!!!!!!!!!

This book was wild, I enjoyed it.............Some things didnt seem real, but the book was worth reading...

Allison Hobbs, you have an amazing, vivid imagination! I always look forward to reading your work, because I can be sure that it will be original, sexy and off the hook!
I like that you are not afraid to shed light on the rich, the poor, paranormal and freaky lives of some of your characters, while placing the reader in places and situations some of us could never even imagine. With the added humor sprinkled into this latest novel, "A Bona Fide Gold Digger" only proves that you are a force to reckon with in the literary world.

This story gives us deceit to the tenth power! The main Character Milan is the ultimate gold digger, no friends, no man; only material possessions are what turn her on! Milan's passion for money is what drives her to the bedside of ailing millionaire Noah Brockington; who she prays drops dead on schedule so she can inherit his fortune. I won't spoil it for future readers but I'll say buckle up and hold tight...you're in for a very adventurous, freaky ride!!

Locksie

ARC Book Club Inc.

I particulaly enjoyed the history around the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Area. There were many of these types of camps dating back to the thirties where city people had a chance to get away from the hot summer and live reasonably on the water. I also liked the reference to the old abandoned Casino. Old abandoned places are perfect settings for mysteries. Mary Jane Clark did an excellent job of keeping me on the edge and wanting to read more and more. Diane's decision of job versus family is one that many of us can identify with. The cutting was very interesing but I felt left hanging. All in all I enjoyed this book very much. It's a keeper!

Seeing "Higgins Clark" on the cover I accidently picked this up thinking it was her former mother-in law. Being an avid Mary Higgins Clark reader I was pleasantly surprised with the results of this book. I found it as good, if not better, than some of the more recent elder Clark's books. A fresh new edge for "clean" mystery readers.

For Diane Mayfield, the last few months of her life have been spent trying to keep her children, Michelle and Anthony, on an even keel. After her husband was sentenced to prison for his part in the financial upheaval of a company who cooked its books, she's been the sole parent and money-maker in a family that once had it all. Her position with KEY News as a correspondent for its Hourglass newsmagazine forces her to give up the family's vacation to the Grand Canyon and instead haul her kids and her 17-years younger sister, Emily, to the New Jersey seashore town of Ocean Grove. Her assignment? Interview Leslie Patterson, a woman who police believe "cried wolf" about her recent disappearance.

Leslie has a past that includes therapies for anorexia and harming herself physically, and the police are reluctant to take her claims seriously. Leslie states that she was abducted by an unknown attacker, and although not raped, was forced to dance with the man over a period of days before a security guard found her, bound and gagged, on the grounds of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Orignally a religion-based commune type establishment, the Association meets every year on Ocean Grove's shore to spen the summer in their tents.

But as another girl disappears, both the local police and Diane start to believe that something more sinister is at work than a trouble young woman staging her own disappearance. As Diane delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, her own family becomes a target for the disturbed individuals that are harassing the tranquility of this once calm sea-side town.

Mary Jane Clark has deftly penned another entertaining thriller. Her characters are all true-to-life and believable, and will have you turning pages until you figure out the mystery.

In Dancing in the Dark, news correspondent Diane Mayfield is forced by her boss to cancel her vacation to the Grand Canyon to cover a story unfolding in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Leslie, a young woman suffering from aneroxia had been missing for 3 days and while she claimed she was abducted and held captive the police believe that she cried wolf and faked her own disappearance. That is until a 2nd girl from Ocean Grove goes missing....

As a fan of Mary Higgins Clark I was hesitant to pick this up but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it flowed and how MJC introduces numerous suspects so that you truly are guessing until the end! A very similar writing style to MHC I enjoyed this quick read, mystery and will pick up another MJC mystery in the future.

DANCING IN THE DARK is my first book by Mary Jane Clark. I found this book to be an enjoyable, albeit lightweight, read. This is a fun, fast-paced whodunit, written in the tradition of Mary Higgins Clark or Agatha Christie. Essentially, the reader gets a great deal of suspense and mystery without any graphic language, violence, or sex.

My major problem with DANCING IN THE DARK was the sheer volume of characters, which made it difficult to keep track of who was doing what. There are some supporting characters in this story who play no meaningful role, and they should have been eliminated for the sake of simplicity. Also, like some of the other reviewers, I found it relatively easy to guess who the murderer was, which led me to be slightly disappointed by the ending.

Still, this book is smoothly written and has an exciting climax. If you're looking for a decent page-turner without any graphic sex or violence, DANCING IN THE DARK should meet your requirements. It is a relatively short novel that can be read in a single afternoon.

Three and a half stars.

The villian described in this book fascinated me. The villian was just evil. My first thought was what could possibly happen in someone's life to turn that person into such a monster?

I really enjoyed this book. Carina Kincaid is a tough heroine, which I like. I loved following her through the story and I enjoyed the romance between her and Nick Thomas.

Overall, a truly great read.

I have read several of Allison Brennan's books and each is a little different. After you are introduced to some of the families in the books, you want to read the next installment or member of the family. It is hard to figure out who is doing the killing and I like the method of reading from the killer's perspective.

Carina Kincaid is a young detective who is investigating a disturbing string of murders. With the help of her partner and her prime suspect's brother, she links the murders to an on-line journal. The romance between Nick and Carina was ridiculously juvenile and typical of Danielle Steel, while the mystery/suspense portion was so unsettling because of Allison Brennan's over-the-top violent and graphic details. There were several times when I wanted to put the book down and never pick it up again, but I did, hence the three stars (I did finish it). Overall, for me, the book was more upsetting than entertaining.

SPEAK NO EVIL

Allison Brennan

A Review by
David Byers


San Diego Police Detective Carina Kincaid, is investigating what turns out to be a serial rapist /murderer. With the help of Montana Sheriff Nick Thomas (who is also the brother of the prime suspect) they work to bring the committer of these heinous crimes to justice, falling in love along the way.
In this well-paced mystery with great sub-plots, the author draws us along with skill, great imagery, and a well researched use of forensics. This is a great read.

I thought this book would be like Mariah Stewart's trilogies, which is why I bought it. While it was very well written, I thought it was way too graphic, even for someone who loves mystery/suspense novels like I do. I won't be passing it on to my mother and grandmother as I usually do when I find a new author in this genre.

I also thought the romance between the main characters seemed forced and rushed, which made it not very believable.

Handler is so good at mastering voice. In this book, it's Joseph's. (In The Basic Eight, it was Flan's.) He flawlessly depicts incredibly interesting and unique characters, which is enough alone to make his books worth reading. Add his characteristic wit, and you've got an amazing novel, as is the case here.

Watch Your Mouth. Was this ever a strange and wonderful book. It had me both raising an eyebrow and laughing out loud many a time. It was sometimes a bit much - one gets a little tired of the narrator and his bizzare, strangely apt sexual metaphors after a while - but then the opera half ends and you're thrown into this crazy self-help book format, and the transition is odd enough that you forget about your weariness. Actually, I think that's pretty much true for the whole novel. It's so ... so weird, and so fresh, and so unique, and because of this, I loved it.

if you've read any of handler's other books, you know what i mean when i say that at the turn of every page, the daniel handler grin smirks across my face. if you have not read any of handler's other books, you would not know what i mean when i say that and have probably already become bored with this review.

to throw you a proverbial bone, this man has mastered the sweet and sour of dark humor, and treats us once again with ridiculous characters in a real world, or real characters in a ridiculous world. if you can't stomach nonsense, or prefer books about happy people doing great things, ditch this book and burry this proverbial bone in your neighbor's proverbial backyard.

if this review were a fortune cookie, it would say: read the book (unless you are afraid of jewish voodoo, in which case, do not). your lucky numbers are 13, 7, 42, & 9.

Daniel Handler is a talented writer. How else could he come up with a novel, which is written both in the form of an opera and then written like a self-help book? How can it be deeply erotic, funny, disturbing and scary at the same time? He is a genius that is how.

Watch Your Mouth tells the story of Joseph, a young college student, spending the summer at his girlfriend Cyn's parents' house outside Pittsburgh, while he and Cyn work at a day camp for young Jewish kids, Camp Shalom. The Glass family are a very odd bunch with Mimi, the mother, working for an opera house that's producing a series of anti-Semitic operas; Ben, the father, is a Orthopedic Surgeon recovering from a failure, that resulted in a patient's bone cracking in half; Stephen, Cyn's brother, who a science geek who works at Carnegie Mellon; Then there is, Cyn, the vixen herself who lured our hero into her strange family's house, so Joseph and Cyn could have sex all summer long. That part, Joseph was okay with. I have to credit Handler with writing openly about young lust and sex. He doesn't spare the details.

But Joseph stumbles on the family secret; actually it's not much of a secret because each family member rationalizes to Joseph, how having sex with a family member is okay. Cyn wants Ben, Ben wants Cyn, Stephen wants Cyn and Mimi wants Stephen. Then Joseph starts hearing sounds in the middle of the night and the Glass family has given into their-disturbing-fantasies.

With that, Watch Your Mouth, turns into a thrilling novel where the body count is high due to a wronged family member with a interest an Jewish Folklore (see: Golem) and Joseph is on the run for his life trying to recover from a horrifying summer that once looked so great.
Watch Your Mouth is a great book that can be confusing sometimes, because Joseph doesn't quite believe what's happening in front of his eyes. But Handler, known to the world as Lemony Snicket, is a truly talented author with a wicked wit and a taste for black humor.

"Watch Your Mouth" is an operatic comedy about incest! So if you like weird books, this is right up your alley. I almost found it too weird, too strange, too absurd though. But you know what, I kept reading it. It was disturbing, but not disturbing enough to make me want to give up.

I thought it was confusing with all of the opera tie-in's/references, but I'm not a big fan of opera. Also, the ending was weak and rather predictable.

Character development was good though - I have an idea of what each character is like in my head. Despite it being rather short, it's not exactly a fast read - Handler is a little too wordy for me at times.

Actually, I didn't really enjoy it at all, but I definitely won't forget it. And despite not really liking it, I'm somewhat tempted to read more by Handler just to see what else he can think of!

Since reading The Basic Eight almost five years ago, I have been in awe of Daniel Handler's wit, way with words, and knack at making me laugh even when his characters are in the bleakest of situations. Even I had some doubts about Watch Your Mouth, though, and how he could take the subject of incest (something I was wary to read about, for some reason)and work it into a novel that could compare with the wonders that were his other works (The Basic Eight, Adverbs, A Series of Unfortunate Events).

After finishing this novel, my only regret is that I didn't pick it up sooner. I found myself on the verge of laughing aloud at work -- probably not the greatest thing to happen, especially since, with a Handler novel, you can't explain exactly why you're laughing. Reading this book was like being part of a delicious inside joke. The ways in which the author manages to mention a previous phrase or event in such an unexpected way kept me grinning from ear to ear as I turned each page.

All in all, I loved this book. The only thing that I found ever-so-slightly disappointing was the ending. The series of events seemed to dissolve into nothing...which, come to think of it, maybe have been the intent all along. I just would have liked a bit more closure, I suppose.

This book has a lot of helpful information for builders of all skill levels. Not only does it provide the prospective puppeteer several different techniques, but you also get a list of resources for the various materials that go into building puppets. From various foam suppliers to the rare distributor of the holy grail of fleeces this book will help you track down what you need.

I expected more from a 25$ book, this is not suitable for kids due to the fact that there is nearly not enough diagrams and simple color images.
For young adults maybe good but again not enough break down on the actual manufacturing process. I don't like putting bad reviews, but due to the fact that I use a lot of books to teach and work. This is deffently overrated. My advice is start with 'the puppetry handbook' by Anita Sinclair ....It is great value

I got this book for my 11-year-old boy. I can't imagine a better book to show you how to make puppets. It has everything you need!

This is a GREAT book in so many ways but I do feel as a beginner that there are a few things they left out. I found myself left with a few questions and no way of discovering what to do next. One thing that would of been great would be fabric/material swatches. I think I know what I'm looking for but swatches would help.

I bought the foam book at an early stage in my puppet making, I'd made two puppets by that point and thought I'd learn a lot from this book.

In particular I'd hoped for a lot of info on creating foam patterns for head shapes. This area in the book is really not very good. It only briefly touches on the three piece head patterns and the examples they give don't even work in practice without some serious adjustment. Though if you're at a very early stage you find some info useful.

The rest of the book has a lot of interesting ideas that could work well in practice. The authors are not the best designers so none of the puppets featured in the book are particularly pretty to look at. But the techniques could easily be applied to a better puppet design.

I'd say that a lot of people will be a bit past this book to be honest. There are better tutorials on the internet for free. But there are some things to be learned from this book.

This book is so boring that it makes other boring things seem interesting. Nothing happens - it is just a bunch of pretty description. Characters are vague and uninteresting. Plot is boring. I didn't even read the book - I wasted my time just scanning over the page praying to be done soon. And it is finally over. I never knew that 240 pages could strench on for sooooooooooooo long. Even 'Lord of Flies' seems interesting comparing to this. Hell, I'd rather be reading Stephen King than this. That is how bad it is.

I really enjoyed The Love-Artist. Well researched and beautifully written, it provides an entertaining look at the events that might have inspired Ovid's poetry and his exile, but it also falls short of being a great book. The mystery of Ovid's exile makes an enthralling narrative engine, and the language recreates Ancient Roman and the wonder and magic of the age. That's great, but it is also disappointing, as Ms. Alison seems to be capable of much more. Talented beyond story-telling, she is capable of creating great literature. Next time, I hope Alison aspires to do just that.

A very fine first novel, The Love-Artist attempts to breathe life into the Roman poet and libertine, Ovid -- rather like Pygmalion breathing life into his creation, Galatea, in Ovid's own Metamorphoses. The only problem is that the story isn't quite as fully or as well realized as I hoped it would be. The writing is beautiful, full of remarkable, poetic images, but where these should be the embellishment, with the story providing a solid backbone, in The Love-Artist, it's rather the other way around: the images are the primary substance, and the backbone of the story is rather more weak than I would have liked. It feels like the novel a poet would write -- a mixed compliment and criticism.

Still, well worth reading for the beauty of its language alone.

I wanted to like Jane Alison's "Love Artist". I really wanted to see if she could bring new life into the story of Ovid. Well, she didn't, and I was left feeling confused and a bit hallow. In this tale, Ovid meets an unusual "sorceress" named Xenia, and they fall in love, and he brings her back from the Black Sea coast to his Rome, where "Metamorphosis" has just came out. There, Ovid gains the patroonship of Augustus's only granddaughter, who dispises her grandfather so much she aborts a pregnancy, thus robbing him of heirs. Anyway, parts of the book are quite erotic, but I don't quite understand how it ended badly for them. Alison is too vague mostly, and this detracts from the story.

I admit, I sometimes judge a book by its cover. In this case, I was not disappointed.

"The Love-Artist" is a rich work. During his banishment from Rome, the great writer Ovid meets Xenia (no, she's not a warrior princess). Xenia is known for her healing talents. She intrigues and inspires Ovid, who returns with her to Rome. But when Ovid decides to use her as the subject for his play "Medea," he creates situations meant to drive Xenia to the brink of madness. How does his muse cope with these manipulations and has Ovid take the charade too far?

Jane Alison's writing is eloquent and full of great imagery and exacting emotion. The characters themselves are well developed and believable.

I highly recommend this book.

I was kinda disappointed with this book. I relied on the hight reviews that's why I bought it, thinking I'll be learning more on how to design good classes from problem analysis, but didn't get what I was hoping for. The topics discussed in the book can be found in most of VB.net books around, and this book emphasized that it is not an object-oriented type of learning material, so for those beginner OOP programmers like me searching for a good book from problem analysis to class design, look anywhere else and please recommend if you found one.

This book is pretty good. It could use a little more 'big picture' information. It does a very good job of differentiating protected, sealed, shared... class modifiers and how they work on a technical level, but not necisarially why you would do it.

I think the book has a good bit of value for somebody who is going to architect a small system or build classes. I think this book combined with the sam's "the object oriented thought process" book are a very good match to introduce intelligent people to modern class construction and use. The book really isn't for slow learners. If you need 'for dummies' books, stay away from this one. If you have a reasonable IQ, then its a very concise lesson without much garbage.

As an experienced developer, I thought this book was not bad. I was looking for a book to strengthen up my class building skillset, but most of this material is just a presentation of fundamentals that I already know. Unfortunately, this book failed to clarify on topics where I lack a strong understanding because they don't really go very deep. Writing is repetitive and sometimes hard to decipher.

Ever been looking for a book but you were not sure what you were looking for because you were not sure what you don't know.

That was me before I finally found it. I am a self taught VB programmer who was REALLY struggling with the OOP concepts. Before buying this book I had purchased 4 or 5 other VB.NET books that didn't cut the mustard at getting me over the OOP hump. And then I found this book.

This book takes nothing for granted and explains so much in such great detail. What is garbage collection? What happens when you call a Reference Type by Value? By Reference? What is constructor chaining? What is an interface? What is inheritance? (And on and on it goes knocking out one question as a time to the tune of HUNDREDS of questions. I have now red this book four times. (Scanned twice, read once, and now am doing a slow thorough read.) It is TRUE that this book is NOT on Object Modeling/Object Oriented Design (now if I could just get my brain wrapped around that). But that is not a great starting point for learning .NET. What I didn't know that I needed to know was that the CLASS is at the heart of OOP fundamentals. Now I would not say I am an expert, but I can pretty accurately conceptualize OOP principles and how .NET works.

If you are in a similar situation, this book is THE book for you.

SBS

Silly, naive me. I purchased a book with the title "Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook" in order to learn more about effective class design, and particularly the expectations of previous Wrox books having wonderful practical examples. But you know you've made a mistake when you receive your book and on page 2 read "This isn't a book about object-oriented analysis and design." It seems as though someone asked the authors "What time is it?" and they wrote a book on how to build a watch and the space/time continuum. I found the single chapter devoted to classes in Sybex's Visual Basic .NET Programming far more valuable than this book. Perhaps it's one of the cases where the title just does not match the intended content -- I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and give two stars instead of one. But I'd also hesitate to ask the authors for directions to the restroom, afraid that I would receive a lecture on the digestive process and the history of plumbing.

Claire Tristram's novel, After, is a slim novel that grapples with colossal passion. A man and a woman meet in a hotel for their first liaison, but the passion the propels the story is his, and hers, not theirs. Caught in an emotional tangle of love, hate and grief, the Widow pursues this man on the anniversary of her late husband's death. The adulterous man succombs to a sexual longing for this woman so different than his own wife. We are privvy to their thoughts in alternating chapters. His anticipation of an erotic encounter is immediately revealed; the Widow's expectations unravel more slowly. The union of two people with separate agendas is, inevitably, skewed and as their weekend progresses, their relationship becomes increasingly raw and disturbing. Tristram's skill in crafting this book is the way she is able to manipulate these two characters to depict the vulnerability, the pain and the confusion experienced by all victims.

Once in a while one encounters a work of such great poetic merit that one wonders why the writer concerned has not yet been granted a literary award a long time ago. Then you learn that this is a debut novel (novella rather, perhaps) and you're stunned. What an absolutely wonderful command of imaginative language and narrative expression. I kept rereading portions of the novel after having finished the work and could not stop being impressed and amazed indeed. We'll be hearing a lot from this lady in the near future.
(From an envious budding novelist).

Writing this novel is either very brave or very cynical, as it embraces the recent tragedy of 9/11, Americans beheaded on foreign soil (Daniel Pearl) and the culture clash of Middle Eastern Fundamentalism with the loss of American innocence. Nothing is referenced in particular, nor are names spoken, only suggestions, but the recent violence is tangible, a widow grappling with the aftermath of her loss.

The widow arbitrarily decides to have an affair with a Muslim and says so to her grief counselor, at first merely for shock value. But the idea holds a strange appeal and the woman makes advance to a man she meets at a trade show. That he is of Persian origin is irrelevant; he fits the need of the moment, whatever dark forces are working in the widow's subconscious. This Muslim has been unfaithful to his wife before, but not since the recent events that have branded him as suspicious rather than mysterious. His life has been "reduced to a choice of pronouns", us or them. The widow finds "a naive intensity about him that had made her think she could skip all the small talk".

Driving to a clandestine meeting at an unkempt hotel in California, the man ponders his life, remembering the violence in his own country, the shocking death of a close friend, his childhood joy in the contours of the sea, remnants of a homeland left behind years ago. Meanwhile, the widow waits. Perhaps she has chosen a man she could not possibly love and therein lies his appeal. Her reasons for arranging the tryst are complicated, suspect, as the widow blindly pursues a release to the unbearable tension that has gripped her since her husband's death. The Muslim has no delusions, only a wish to comfort this strange woman, mislead by her changeable emotions.

The couple embarks on their assignation in the anonymous hotel room by the sea, but with the view of an empty pool, any traces of romance obliterated by disuse. Here they act out her fantasy; later he makes tentative advances, wanting a closeness that she cannot or will not allow. He makes dogged attempts at intimacy, refusing to give up on her passivity. The widow has seduced this man with her vulnerability; they are joined in the physical act, yet irrevocably separated by their differences. The union is more unsettling than erotic, his wife barely present, her husband hovering. The coupling takes on a life of its own, with surprising twists of cruelty, barely suppressed rage and the jagged edge of violence. In only a day and a half, what should have been a simple transaction between two virtual strangers degenerates into a purgative ritual, leaving the widow and the Muslim stunned.

The author rides the widow's subconscious to the darkest corners of her rage and grief, unleashing the demons that have usurped her ability to function without her husband. The Muslim sees himself as an individual, seeking only the comforts of an extra-marital affair, but this is not the time for such distinctions, as the woman is blinded by the enormity of her loss. Prodding relentlessly at the widow's damaged psyche, Tristram creates a vulnerable, haunted character, driven to act out what she cannot process in words, love and rage impossibly entwined. This provocative novel examines the reclamation of self by a woman who cannot achieve closure by ordinary means, unmoored by an act of infidelity with the object of her enmity. Whether the author goes too far is for the reader to decide. Perhaps this is an act of bravery, writing of the forbidden to uncover hidden reserves of hatred and unfathomable grief. Luan Gaines/2005.

This is one of the darkest novels I have read. After is the story of a widow who decides to take on a lover in the most unique, albeit disturbing way. Some time after her husband died in the hands of terrorists, the unnamed female character decides to shack up with a married Muslin man at a rundown hotel somewhere in California (the novel's exact setting is unspecified). What transpires is a disarming story centered on hatred, prejudice and reflections on the meaning of true love.

The affair is told in graphic detail. The couple at times turns violent, and said scenes are quite disturbing. The story is incredible, philosophical at times, dark and suspenseful to the core. The theme has a taboo appeal to it that is thought provoking and provocative. I loved the scenes in which the protagonist talks about her husband with her lover and the discussions regarding the Jewish (her husband was Jewish) and Muslin faiths. As said earlier, a lot of the passages come across as dark philosophies centered on religion and politics and I found myself pondering certain lines after I finished the book. After is brilliant. Claire Tristram is a talented, incredible author and I look forward to reading her future works -- that is if there will be future projects. I do hope she will write something as impressive as her debut effort. I can't recommend this novel enough.

Sparse, measured, breathless pacing. I don't lean toward inviting comparisons often but if you liked "House of Sand and Fog" you will love this tender and heart-wrenching novel, a worthy addition to the slender list of fiction dealing with life in a post 9/11 world.