Nova Books

This book is ATROCIOUS. It is so repetitive and trite. Does Daisy have magical powers? Is James really that "hard"? Is David Jake? And just why is Paul in the story at all? This is a great example of the difference between novelists who evoke feelings and ideas versus those who slam you over the head with a baseball bat (or a wolf bone :))

Ick!

This was the second book I read written by Rice. It was the first, SAFE HARBOR, that made me want for more! The Secret Hour is better, well, maybe not better, but written from a much different voice. Rather than go into detail about characters, location, plot, etc. - AMAZON does a great job of that - I'll just add that it was the suspense coupled with the building attraction between the two main characters in the book that made this book so hard to put down. If you are looking for a good read, interesting yet complicated character building, romance that builds around suspense, then this is your book. Warning: You will want to stay up each night to read "just one more chapter" before you finish this one!

Luanne Rice chooses inviting settings and paints colorful and easily pictured characters. This is my favorite of her works. You will not want to put it down, until you have read to the last page, and then the story will haunt you until you read it again.

After the mysterious disappearance of her three-year-old son Jake, Daisy Tucker divorces her husband James and moves back to Connecticut with her daughter Sage.

Thirteen years later, a pregnant Sage runs away from home with her boyfriend Ben. Desperate for a place to go, she decides to head to Wyoming, for the ranch where her father - whom she hasn't seen since the divorce - resides.

Halfway across the country, Ben decides to head back. But Sage persists, determined to get to what she considers her "true" home...no matter what the cost.

A horrific encounter in Nebraska causes Sage to meet David, a troubled 16-year-old who has made it his mission to rescue animals from puppy mills. He agrees to take Sage the rest of the way to Nebraska.

As the two spend more time together, Sage begins to realize that "David" - who was adopted at very young age - actually bears numerous similarities to her long-lost twin brother...

Meanwhile, a distraught Daisy - surmising where her daughter is headed - flew out to Wyoming and waits with her ex-husband. Although they haven't seen one another in 13 years and separated because of tragedy, they quickly find that nothing has changed between them...

Overall, this story is intriguing and holds a great deal of promise. The idea of following a family in the years after a child's disappearance is rich for plots. But Rice pushes the notion of "twin connection" and coincidence a bit too far...how likely is it that a pregnant hitchhiking teenager would randomly stumble upon a key person...in a state where neither resided, or had any real reason to be, other than David's feeling he was being "called" to drive through Nebraska? How likely is it that Sage would just "know" a brother she hadn't seen since she was three? That same brother, in turn, has no recollection of *her*...

And how convenient that neither Daisy nor James remarried after all those years! They broke up because of their lost son, but somehow right when they meet again - son still lost - everything is right in their world again.

I think I'll stick with Rice's other books.

When her toddler son Jake disappears in the mountains outside their Wyoming ranch, Daisy Tucker cannot bear to remain, and packs up Jake's twin and moves to Connecticut to be closer to family and raise Sage as a single mom. She is further devastated 13 years later when a pregnant teenage Sage runs away from home with her boyfriend to join her father James on the ranch. She has always felt that something is missing, When Ben decides that he has had enough of the road trip, he heads home, but Sage forges on, and with the help of a mysterious young man with a shady past, eventually makes it to Wyoming.

James has never been able to leave the ranch, in hope that Jake may return to the family fold. Daisy must swallow all pride and return to the place that holds harrowing memories and face the man she still loves while they wait out Sage's return. The ranch is also being stalked by a mysterious "guardian" who is shooting cattle and causing problems for the Tucker family. Upon seeing each other again, the chemistry between James and Daisy is immediate and intense.

The fate of Jake is revealed, as well as the culprit behind his disappearance, which is a bit of a twist. Rice has penned another wonderful and uplifting drama of a family that reunites and bands together despite the odds.

This book is a self-serving woe-is-me diatribe against the US government because it dared to charge a non-white individual with the crime of espionage. Lee claims this happened to him by virtue of the fact that he is Chinese, and in spite of the fact that he is a naturalized American citizen. Hence, the title.

First, I do not consider naturalized citizens to be American in the full sense of the word. It is simply amazing that people like Lee get hired to positions such as the one he held.

Second, having served in the US Air Force with a top secret crypto clearance, I know from experience that people working in the intelligence community are very aware that they are not to share any sensitive data with anyone unless he/she has the appropriate clearance as well as "the need to know." Yet Lee downloaded all kinds of classified data onto his home computer, a huge no-no for anyone working with sensitive data. And why did he do so, pray tell? What was he going to do with the data he stole? Are we to assume he had no intentions of sharing this information with anyone? According to Lee, to think otherwise makes one a racist.

Third, when the story first broke in the media, I knew it was only a matter of time until Lee or his attorneys would play the race card. If you go to Lee's website and check the names of those that have signed a petition in behalf of Mr. Lee, you will notice that the vast majority are Chinese. How many of these signatories put their names on the petition out of a knee-jerk tribalistic instinct rather than through a sincere effort to discern the truth?

And now we have the case of Chi Mak, a Chinese-born engineer recently found guilty of handing over classified data on electronic propulsion systems for stealth submarines to the People's Republic of China. One wonders why Chi Mak did not play the race card as did Lee. One wonders how many signatories to a petition he could garner from fellow Chinese living in the United States. One wonders what he was doing in such a position to begin with. Maybe we'll find out when Chi writes his book.

The book is an interesting account of Lee's "persecution", but anyone who reads the book without understanding that the author is writing about HIMSELF - not exactly an impartial source for the facts - will come to the conclusion that he was a victim of an insane government.

If you don't have time to read the book, here's a synopsis - The US government knew that classified material was getting from Los Alamos to China, and targeted me for investigation not because of my admittedly suspicious and illegal activity but because I'm Asian.

Dr Lee told his story in this book. As a naturalized American citizen, he does his professional job, raised a family with a typical middle class profile. But he was the wrong man as in the Chinese saying "The city gate fire victimized the fish in the pond" in the struggle of two parties ugly politics. Reading this book creates the following questions.

1. Where is due process for Dr. Lee?
2. What is the role of free press in democracy?
3. Why a free press is enthusiastic to make a guilty assumption on him?
4. Why there is silence on the spy on Crown Jewel Rocket secret afterward?
5. Why US Court Judge Parker ended the case with an unusual apology to Dr. Lee, an alleged felon in 9-month solitary confinement with 59 charges?
6. Why there is a plea bargain for one small charge to cover up lost face?
7. Why this case is important relating to US Constitution and the rule of law?

Dr Lee warns readers "Do not talk to FBI without your lawyer." This book gives the reality lesson of politics, humanity and justice.
All men are created equal - some are more equal than others?

Mr. Lee is an amazing author and does an excellent job portraying the "all-righteous" government so many americans think that we have in this country. The truth is that corruption does exists, which is evident in all of the ways that the FBI, DOE, courts, and all of the other Federal organizations dealt with Mr. Lee. My hat is off to him for his courage, fortitude, and skill in creating a wonderful written work straight from his heart.

In December 1999, when the threat to national security posed by Elian Gonzales had yet to be discovered and neutralized by the Reno Justice Department, another plot, equally dastardly, was uncovered by the FBI. Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born American, was found to be working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory alongside America-born Americans on our nation's most sensitive nuclear secrets. With an alacrity that impressed even Reno's political opponents, the FBI clapped Lee into leg and arm shackles and an orange jumpsuit and put him into solitary confinement in a prison in Santa Fe. In so treating him *before* he had committed his crime, Reno was able to stop him from doing the sorts of things that Timothy McVeigh and Ramzi Yousef had done to get themselves the same sort of rough justice. Of course, Mr. Lee is not happy about these preventive measures, and it shows in his book, but the reader must keep in mind that he was born in Taiwan and doesn't understand our ways.

It is distressing to all patriots that a judge ordered Mr. Lee's release before the Justice Dept was able to fully punish him for what they thought he might have done. Lee's lawyers cleverly played on the so-called "no evidence" loophole to get him sprung after a mere nine months in prison.

Espionage and treason investigations are usually begun when there is evidence of a government employee in a sensitive post spending beyond his or her means: Clyde Conrad with his stash of gold coins; Ed Wilson with his vast Virginia real estate holdings; John Walker with his yacht. Lee's lawyers were able get him freed on the "no evidence" technicality before the FBI had time to find out what it was about Mr. Lee's lifestyle that made them understand that he was a spy. We know now that his stated hobbies of gardening and fly-fishing might well have been covers for illicit activities. Rare coins, might have been buried under the carrots. The whereabouts of an excellent trout pool in a New Mexico creek might have been only the first in a long line of secrets that Lee might have disclosed to the Chinese communists.

Given that the FBI was not accorded sufficient time to uncover his crimes, the whole investigation appears to have rested on Mr. Lee's own admission of the fact that he was born in Taiwan, which has a clear link to China, which in turn is one of our nation's greatest enemies. It sends a chill down my spine to think of how many others might have used the "great scientist" guise to spy on us. Albert Einstein, to name only one, was allowed access to some of our most sensitive data on physics relating to atoms and neutrons and so forth, and no one seems to have noticed that he was born in *Germany*, one of our chief enemies in Europe during World War II. He managed to infiltrate the community of America-born scientists and might well have passed on a massive amount of vital intelligence to his erstwhile compatriots, the Nazis. In fact, it's no exaggeration to say that if he'd been properly incarcerated like Mr. Lee, the war in Europe might have ended many months sooner.

Minette Walters is known for the taut psychological thrillers that she pens, and this book is certainly that, but it is so much more. It reveals frightening family secrets that keep coming and never seem to end until the end of the book. It depicts a disfuncitonal family that is anyone's worst nightmare, and the whole is not truly revealed until the very last page. This plot is so twisted that I had to take a breath after I finished the book. And Ms. Walters is an accomplished writer. Her characters are so very real, the suspense so gripping and the secerts that she reveals so horrendous that I couldn't put it down. Mathilda Gillespie is a wonderful creation. Even though she is the murder victim, we find out more and more about her past life and present depravaties as we read the book. These are highlighted in the "before Chapter" excerpts from Mathilda's diaries. But Ms. Walters only reveals so much at a time. We have to wait until the very end to determine who and what occurences made Mathilda what she was when she was murdered. I can't believe that I've waited this long to get into Ms. Walters' books. I can't wait to read the rest of them.

The only thing that could possibly rival this book for the number of psychiactric problems per page would be a copy of the DSM-IV manual.

Walters clearly has a formidable intellect and develops characters that are complex studies in human behavior. The individuals in these pages are not shallow charicatures, nor are they what first meets the eye. No, the problem isn't Walters' ability to develop characters. It's her choice of characters to develop.

The real problem in this book is that Walters has given us almost nobody likeable. Some we come to pity, but none that we truly come to like. And when at long last we learn the identity of the killer, it feels less like a finale than a let down. The book, as one other reviewer has noted, is over-plotted. It comes across as too clever for its own good.

Here's a quick cast of characters. See if you can find anyone huggable in the lot:

* Dr. Sarah Blakeney: Sensible, attractive, and slightly overachieving physician, liked by most everyone in town. Slavish devotion to husband - a world-class skirt-chaser and free-loader. Would be a poster child for one of Dr. Laura Schlesinger's books on smart women who stay enmeshed in stupid relationships.

* Jack Blakeney: Sarah's husband. If he had his own line of clothing, it would be a black t-shirt that read "it's all about me." Spoiled, artistic snob who can't sell his paintings because "the world doesn't appreciate his genius," and believes monogomy would be a betrayal of his "inner hedonist."

* Tommy Cooper: local police detective. Nice enough fellow, and unexpectedly bright underneath a plain brown wrapper. But counsels a confused teenager to get an abortion which is somehow supposed to endear him to us for his remarkable sensitivity, insight, and modern sensibilities. Yeah, right.

* Mathilda Gillespie: Wealthy b**tch. Not much more to say here. Universally disliked by the entire town, her daughter, and her grand-daughter.

* Joanna Lascelles: Mathilda's daughter. Heroin addict and hooker. Abysmal mother. Physically gorgeous. Psychologically hideous.

* Ruth Lascelles: Joanna's daughter. Nervous, disrespectful, 17-year old going on 30. Spoiled materially - starved emotionally.

* Gerald Cavendish: Mathilda's uncle. Sexual predator. Village idiot.

* James Gillespie: drunk. Closet homosexual. Mathilda's estranged husband.

* David Hughes: Ruth's "boyfriend." Gang leader. Theif. Rapist. Pathological liar.

Shall I continue? I trust I've made my point. Now, imagine 300+ pages filled with the antics of this crowd when Mathilda dies and bequeaths her entire estate to Dr. Blakeney rather than her own offspring.

Walters takes what could have been an interesting mystery and wraps it with so many layers of truly unlikable characters that the real mystery here is how the book succeeds at all. It does quasi-succeed, but primarily in spite of this, not because of it.

Perhaps her other books are better - this is my first - but I just can't award this one too many stars. She is clearly capable of very good, highly intelligent writing. But the subject matter chosen here is about as depressing as it gets and the plot is full of too many "do you think he knows that we know he thinks we know" type convolutions.

When elderly Mathilda Gillespie is found dead in her bathtub in a ghastly parody of Ophelia, a scold's bridle on her head ("a primitive instrument of repression" used to "curb the tongues of nagging women in the Middle Ages"), her demise is first ascribed a suicide but later amended to murder by an enterprising policeman, Detective Sergeant Cooper of the Dorset Police. Leaving behind an avaricious daughter, Joanne Lascelles and granddaughter, Ruth, who have every expectation of assuming Mathilda's family inheritance, it is a great shock when the woman's latest will bequeaths the entire estate to GP Sarah Blakeney- "the only person... who came to her without prejudice and took her as she was"- who has only treated the deceased for chronic arthritis for the past year. Suddenly the truly unsavory Lascelles women are dependent on Sarah's goodwill to receive any remuneration, the town reeling with gossip about the physician, patients assuming Sarah is complicit in the old woman's death.

Besides dealing with her damaged reputation and the unreasonable demands of Mathilda's daughter and granddaughter, Sarah must also confront a whimsical, philandering husband, Jack, an artist who paints "personalities" instead of portraits and is a sly observer of human nature. Their relationship complicated by Jack's self-important genius and Sarah's inherent lack of confidence as a wife, Jack's familiarity with the deceased increases the subtleties of a plot rife with deception and cynicism. Deftly constructing some truly unlikable characters, Walters nevertheless provides a compelling story, part of the fascination the depravity of some of the major players. The image on the scold's bridle dominates the novel: the ramifications of the device and its symbolism in modern times (keep her quiet at all costs). Even worse is the abuse endured by the vulnerable, Jack outraged by the brutality of his gender and Sarah's groping for a resolution to a frightening moral dilemma.

Salted with homilies, much of the pleasure of this book is discovering Walter's appreciation of the foibles that bedevil her characters. An avid fan of the vagaries of human nature, Walters writing, for all that it is in the mystery genre, is blissfully sophisticated, while at the same time pragmatic and to the point. A gifted storyteller, this author cannot fail to entertain, a fountain of wry observation on man's inhumanity to man and occasional bursts of altruism. No matter the topic- in this case child abuse, incest and the pain wrought of family dysfunction- the author plunges beneath the surface of our expectations, revealing the complexities of her tormented characters and the generosity and confusion of unlikely protagonists. Like vintage wine, such novels are meant to be savored, filled with astonishing events and profound insights. Within two titles, The Ice House and The Scold's Bridle, Walters has found a willing addict, her fascinating characterizations and diabolical plots absolutely compelling. Luan Gaines/2007.

Intelligent and provocative story which offers insights into people's motives and behaviour. The cast of characters is interesting, and the writing (including changes in voice) was quite good. This mystery kept me turning the pages well into the night!

The Scold's bridle was winner of the CWA crime novel of the year, and after reading it, there is no doubt in my mind that it is worthy of its accolades. An old, crotchety shrew is found dead in the bathtub. Her wrists horribly slit, pills in her bloodstream, and an antique scold' bridle clasped firmly on her head. A medieval device used to silence nagging women in days of your...All signs point to suicide but for the contraption clamped onto her face, and the protagonist Sarah, her doctor, who said the old woman was emotionally stable. The reader is treated to many twists and turns as the police investigate the small town - only to find out that seemingly everyone had some motive to kill her, as she was entirely dislikeable. Enter the estranged and highly disgruntled family all looking for a share of the considerable family fortune, and you have a sure-fire method of staying up all night waiting for answers.

Read this book for hours of unbridled suspense, but don't do it on a night when you have to get up early, as you won't be going to sleep.

Relic113

The scenes concerning the evil-doer are almost too much to take.
I admit to needing to skip them after the second one.
Admittedly, for me personally, children or animals in peril are anathema.
For those who are squeamish like me, you can still enjoy and follow the plot without reading the gruesome bits.
The main story line of coming home again and reconnecting with family is wonderful.
I have read several Karen Robard's books now and find
she excels at relationships. Also, at writing creepy antagonists
so well you cringe.
This one read very smoothly. The romantic interest wasn't rushed. The dialog is crisp and the romance sultry.
I agree with one other reviewer about a rushed ending.
I actually checked out how many pages I had left at one point wondering how they could wrap it all up. It is still a most satisfying read, rushed ending and all.
I really like the two young children and the main character Olivia's
interaction with them. Gave the story a little something extra than the usual
romance plus suspense equation.
It concludes with a "puts a smile on your face" wonderfully mushy ending.

I thought this book was boring compared to the rest of her awesome reads. I thought it died before it began. If you have never read Mrs. Robards, do not start on this book, any other will do.

Author Robards ("The Midnight Hour" and "The Senator's Wife") has penned her most macabre epic to date with this set in Louisiana tale of Olivia Morrison's return to family home and fearsome foes.

In addition, unexpected emotions are reawakened when she confronts Seth, her older stepcousin, to whom she is once again drawn.

Reader Dean Robertson is appropriately chilling as he relates the 20 year old murders of little girls the same age as Olivia's daughter.

After reading two of Karen Robard's books, I was not completely sure if I would like Ghost Moon , or not. To me, though, it was reminicsent of some of the Phyllis Whitney books I used to read so much. It was an excellent read!!
I applaud Karen Robards on this fine story. I just wish all of her books were that enjoyable.

A book with a strong southern family is always entertaining. Robard's did an excellent job in portraying a family dynamic that was very intimate and very interesting. Although the underlying story of the mother's apparent suicide and the kidnapper of the '70s is a good foundation, it was the romance of Olivia and Seth that took the front seat. I enjoyed the angst of Olivia's emotions, I only wish we had seen more from Seth. The only reason this book receives a 4 star and not 5 from me is because of the seemingly rushed ending. It was almost like, "Oh! I have 1 chapter and 5 pages left and I still have to kidnap a little girl, solve a thirty year old mystery AND reveal the culprit and his motive!" I could of stood for a longer book with more depth in the underlying story.

I loved Tully so I decided to check this one out. I loved it! It grabbed me from the start and it was hard to put down.

I was looking for the book by Belva Plain with the same title. I found this one instead. The first few pages were intriguing, but by the end, I didn't like any of the main characters or care what happened to them

Definitely not the best of the Paullina Simons books! (The best is Tully!) Still good though. It's a shorter read in comparison to some of the others. Necessary read for any PS fan, though.

Paullina Simons delivers a tense, suspenseful story, full of dark undertones and nice plot twists. We meet Kristina and get to know her before her untimely death, helping the reader connect and care about why she was murdered. You feel the frustration and sadness right along with Spencer, the lead detective, as he tries to unravel the lies, half-truths, and explosive surprises that tremor below the surface of Ivy League Dartmouth College.

I am in awe,yet again,of Paullina's writing. This book hooks you on page one- makes you care about the characters and long for more once the book is over. Like other Paullina Simons' books- this is a dark book- don't expect a cheerful, happy ending. Still, a wonderful mystery with twists and turns through the entire book.

I love her writing I try to read all of her books but I have alot of favorites so I might miss some of her new ones

This is another wooden, easily solved Krentz book. What has happened to the author who wrote such classics as Absolutely, Positively or Trust Me? These last few years have been nothing but one formulaic, clunky novel after another, with tiresome characters and easily-predicted plotlines. I want the excitement and energy of her ealier novels, not some rehashed pulp with her name attached to boost sales. I hate to say it, but I think I'm about ready to stop reading Krentz and look elsewhere for my romance jollies. Don't waste your time with this book--go back and read some of her stuff from the nineties & see what a really well-written, exciting, and romantic novel can be like when it's done as well as Ms. Krentz can do.

I really enjoy JAK. She is one of the few writers I know I can trust to give me a story that I will enjoy but not have to get too involved in. She is sharp in her technique and style. However, although this book was a fun read, the story is weak. The ending is even weaker -- everyone else up in happy coupledom except, of course, for the killer. This book is perfect for a rainy Saturday or to keep around for when the weather is too cold to go out and do much else.

First I will say that JAK was not previously on my must buy list and judging from this book she will not be there any time in the near future. For me, the characters were undeveloped and uninteresting and at many times annoying. I didn't even like the dog and I have now been informed over and over that jogging will ruin my knees. The mystery part of the book seemed almost like it was thrown in as a second thought and made absolutely no sense.

I thoroughly enjoy a well-developed romantic mystery but this is certainly not one. I might give JAK another chance sometime but hopefully I have helped save someone's time with this title.

This book took me a little longer to get into ,but after the 3rd chapter its got you. Its more of a mystery then suspence thriller.Has likable characters. I recommend this if you have time to get through the 3 chapters.

The Songcatcher is historical fiction based on Sharyn McCrumb's genealogy tied together by a Celtic/Gaelic ballad passed down through the generations. The mystery is really the hunt for the ballad about The Rowan Stave:

Upon the hill above the kirk at moon rise she did stand, To tend her sheep that Samhain eve, with rowan staff in hand. And where she's been and what she's seen, no living soul may know, and when she's come back home, she will be changed-oh!

The Songcatcher takes the reader from the 18th century through 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, in no specific order. Although some find the story disjointed, with too many characters and storylines, I really enjoyed meeting the ancestors of the present-day people who begin and end the novel. McCrumb's descriptions of the 18th century sailors at sea were so vivid you could taste the salt air. Knowing that these people were the predecessors of the 21st century folk gave the story continuity.

A recurring theme in The Songcatcher and McCrumb's other Appalachian books is mysticism, folklore, and superstition. A special white pebble becomes an amulet that protects Malcolm McCourry against the midwife's prediction that, "The Sea will take him." Nora Bonesteel, a 21st century Appalachian resident, has "The Sight." When someone dies, Nora already has the cake to take to the bereaved family baking in the oven. She also sees ghosts and talks to them.

The combination of mysticism, song, ancestral history, mountain lore makes The Songcatcher an enjoyable tale well-worth reading.

The Songcatcher tells the story of one North Carolina family and the song that it passed from one generation of the family to the next, a song that famous folk singer Lark McCourry hopes to find so that she can center her next record album around it. Malcolm McCourry, kidnapped in 1751 by English sailors at age nine and taken to sea, learned the song by hearing it on evenings during which the men sang ballads to entertain themselves and their shipmates. It was the kind of ghost story that an impressionable young boy would never forget, and McCourry brought the lyrics with him to America in 1759 when he decided that he was finished with life on the ocean.

Sharyn McCrumb looked to her own family history as inspiration for The Songcatcher. She discovered ancestor Malcolm McCourry while researching another book and framed this story around his real life experiences. McCrumb uses alternating sections within each chapter of the book to recount the events of Malcolm's life that resulted in him starting a second family in the mountains of North Carolina and the real world plight of Lark McCourry who is reluctantly returning to those same mountains to see her dying father one last time.

As the book progresses from generation to generation, it becomes obvious that Lark McCourry has much in common with her ancestors. Like them, she is basically a loner who manages to keep people at a distance and who suffers a poor relationship with her father, the kind of relationship that so many first-born McCourrys experienced over the years. But the song has survived everything that the family has experienced for more than two hundred years and it is up to Lark McCourry to make sure that her father does not take it with him to the grave.

Regular readers of Sharyn McCrumb will recognize some characters from her past "ballad novels." Sheriff Spencer Arrowood makes a relatively brief, but important, appearance in the book, and Nora Bonesteeel, an old woman who converses with the dead as easily as she does with the living, is there to help tie the McCourry generations together. Rather strangely, the book includes a side story that adds little or nothing to the main plot, a storyline involving a sheriff's deputy who manages to get his foot trapped beneath the wreckage of an old airplane that crashed into the mountain forests decades earlier. Because the book already alternates two distinct storylines, the addition of a third one into the mix, one that really doesn't go anywhere, is an unnecessary distraction.

Sharyn McCrumb has an interesting family history and, although The Songcatcher is not one of her strongest books, it is worth a look.

This is a great story. It could make everyone who reads it become interested in geneology. Sharyn McCrumb at her best writing a true story from her family.

A book with a folksong as hero? I liked the idea and soon was engrossed in McCrumb's world and intriguing characters.

The novel centers around a contemporary singer's search for a song heard years earlier at a relative's funeral. The story is told by a number of viewpoints which vary from past to present, a technique which might be distracting were not the various characters so interesting.

Chief among them is Malcolm McCourry, who is kidnapped as a child from his home on the Scottish island of Islay, becomes a lawyer in New Jersey, then, in his middle years, abandons wife, children and profession to become a pioneer in the North Carolina wilderness where he builds a new life with a common-law child-bride.

Malcolm's descendant, Linda Walker, who has re-named herself Lark McCourry and honed a career as a folksinger, is the one who seeks his song and provides the modern storyline. While returning home to the mountains to see her ailing father, her plane crashes and she uses her cell phone to contact 911. She talks the dispatcher into joining the hunt for the song and he complies as a means to occupy her mind during the rescue effort.

Based in part on McCrumb's own ancestors (Malcolm McCourry, for one), the novel combines elements of genealogy, history, mountain lore, ghosts, mystery and, of course, music. In fact, the song at the crux of the whole is actually an original composed by the author.

I have to confess this is the first of McCrumb's Ballad series I've read. But, it won't be the last.

I've had this one on my bookshelf for some time and just recently, in the mood for a good story, I picked this one up. I wish I hadn't finished it. It is a tale of a people that traveled from Scotland to the USA to the Tennessee/North Carolina mountains. This book travels back and forth from 1751 to present ~~ tracing the footsteps of a lineage and a haunting ballad that has been preserved in the family over the generations.

Lark McCourry is on her way home when her plane crashed in the mountains. She is haunted by the memory of a song that she had heard as a child, a song that was brought over to the States by her ancestor, Malcom McCourry, who was kidnapped as a child off the coasts of Scotland. He eventually became a lawyer in the States, fought in the Revolutionary War, raised a family, and headed off to the Wilderness Road to North Carolina, where he raised a second family. He passed the song onto his descendants, one of whom is Lark.

Lark is a famous folksinger on her way home to seeing her dad, with whom she has a rocky relationship with and is trapped in the plane that crashed. While waiting for help, she also asked for help in relocating this ballad to preserve it.

While the song travels over the years, McCrumb writes of people who lived in different times and their little stories become enmeshed with one another in a trickle of humanness and bits that make up the world today. Those ancestors of Lark's were all unique individuals who struggle to get ahead and still have a deep abiding love for their mountains and heritage.

It is a beautiful haunting story ~~ one to keep as a reminder that there are just some things that are worth preserving, a family song, a memory and family. It's a great book ~~ and one to cherish.

8-4-06

I've always been a little weary of novelizations. Usually they're poorly written with little to add to the film, TV show, or whatever they are adapted from. The Bond films are much the same (John Gardner's adaptations of Licence To Kill and Goldeneye for example). Yet with the novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies, Raymond Benson does something almost extraordinary. He manages to take the film and make it seem like a genuine Bond book adventure.

The Bond of the book is much the same as the Bond of the original literary novels written by Benson, meaning that it's pretty much Brosnan as Bond in both the novel and film. Yet Benson manages to keep the human elements of the character alive as well especially in the few brief scenes with Paris Carver. But as always, Benson's 007 is best in action and it is this part of the character that Benson really taps into with no problem.

The rest of the characters are really well fleshed out and put their film counterparts to shame big time. We learn of the sinister rise to power of Elliot Carver which makes for one of the most chilling chapters I have ever read in a Bond novel. Plus Carver seems to be less of the film's super villian and more like a real, albeit evil, person. The same can be said of the Stamper character as well even though he is still at heart nothing more then a stereotype.

The two other characters that are fleshed out are the two Bond girls. Wai Lin is given a whole chapter dedicated to her mission that led her to the party in Hamburg. She comes across less as a female version of Bond (being almost too tough for a Bond girl) as seen in the film and more as a real person. The background we are given on Paris helps out with her character as well. Even though she appears in even less here then in the final film she is a much better character here.

The story also reads a lot better. Benson was obviously working from an earlier version of the script and from what is in the novel it is a shame that the filmmakers didn't stick to this one. Because let me tell you it's a much different story here. Not that the sequence of events is much different. But the nature of Carver's plan is much different and a lot more realistic then the one in the film. In fact considering the world today, the plan as seen in the book is chilling to say the least.

As for much of the content, those of you familiar with the Benson 007 novels will have much to like about this. If you aren't then this is a book you should read to see how good Tomorrow Never Dies should have been. This might be the one time a novelization has actually been better then the actual film.

Review

Raymond Benson's novelization of the eighteenth Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies is an absolute must-read for those avid Bond fans. In this non-stop action novel, Mr. Benson admirably adds all the excitement of the movie in addition to in-depth character development and enlightenments of aspects of the movie that all Bond fans can appreciate.

Mr. Benson has done a wonderful job of reviewing the Bond film in depth and for those readers who have seen the movie, the story is such that it was still "hot off the presses" - an analogy appropriate to the storyline. Another quality, I enjoyed in this novelization was how Mr. Benson has implemented his own artistic licence in quite a few areas of the storyline. For instance, the sequence of events between those at Saigon and those aboard the stealth boat are elaborated on, filling the slight gap that was present in the movie.

In addition to the preceding novelization features, I believe that Mr. Benson should also be recognized for his intricate attention to detail and alluring descriptions of the setting. One thing is for certain - Raymond Benson means a good quality read!

Plot

A British naval frigate, the H.M.S. Devonshire, sinks off of the coast of China under mysterious circumstances and an international media mogul, Elliot Carver, sways the British into believing that the Chinese are responsible for the vessel's fate. With military plights arising between Britain and China, the head of M-I6 Intelligence, `M,' sends her most capable agent, James Bond 007, to investigate the sinking within a forty-eight hour time frame. Bond's investigation leads him to Hamburg, Germany where he meets up with a former girlfriend, and recovers a device that could be responsible for the hostilities. Proceeding to Saigon, Bond allies with a beautiful Chinese agent, Wai Lin and discovers who is clearly the adversary in this incident... and it's not the Chinese. The only question is, will Bond be able to stop him before World War III begins?

Conclusion

Raymond Benson's novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies is an outstanding read, and perfect for those who like a good action/mystery movie. This novel has inspired me to read Mr. Benson's very own original James Bond novel, "Zero Minus Ten," which is another example of this author's talent. An excellent job, Raymond! A+.

Tomorrow Never Dies was the first James Bond movie I ever saw, and I've seen it a few million times now, so I know the plot back and forth. Benson's novelization, while based on the screenplay, is so much better in many ways. One is that he added in a lot. Another is that he tells what the characters are thinking (a third-person omniscient instead of a third-person narrative), and he explains everything, like why Elliot Carver is evil, and even a bit about Bond as a schoolboy. All in all, great book. I also liked how he explains all the gear and weapons.

This was a very good book and Benson did a wonderful job of explaining things and it is just like the movie.

I loved the movie so I wanted to check out the book. The book was very hard to follow. The action was good but the whole time I was reading I had no clue what was going on. I didn't finish the book because it was too confusing. It had a lot more than the movie did but I still think it's not worth buying but if you really want to read it i strongly reccomed checking it out from the library.

The Bookcassette Adapter gives you balance control on your headphones and is so easy to use: Plug it into the stereo jack of your personal tapeplayer and then plug your headphones into the other side. The Bookcassette Adapter Works ONLY on Stereo Tapeplayers.

If you plan on listening to Bookcassette audio books on a stereo system where you can adjust the sound between the left and right speakers separately, such as a rack system with separate left and right speaker controls or a car stereo with a left and right balance dial, you will be able to listen to Bookcassette audio books without a problem. If you plan on listening to these audio books on a portable cassette player that does not have this capability, such as a Walkman with headphones, you will require an adapter.

As I said, it would be cheaper to buy it on the Internet, especially on eBay, instead of directly from the company (Brilliance Corporation) at 1-800-697-6797

I like Pearson. He is better at character development than Michael Connelly. But with this particular novel, there is too much time spent in character development. And there are several characters, old and new. As a result, the book is big and fat, and the story moves slowly.

It is not until towards the end that Pearson writes that it seemed like the next 24 hours flew by. That was a signal to the reader that we were finally going to get some action. And still it dragged. You might want to pass on this one.

First and foremost, "Beyond Recognition" was a good detective/thriller story. Pearson created likeable characters that (almost always) ring true. The crimes are tough to solve and real-life issues creep into the scene to make solving it even more complicated. This was a real page-turner.

However, some issues bothered me:

#1 - Lou Boldt (the hero) muses about the time he solved the mystery of the scuba diver who was found dead in the middle of a forest. Unfortunately, Pearson resurrects the long-discredited urban legend about the fire-fighting helicopter that sucks up a scuba diver while getting water to drop on a fire. Enough of that one, please!

#2 - The arsonist uses a "rare" Werner fiberglass ladder that is sold through an exclusive distributor. I own a Werner fiberglass ladder that I bought at Lowe's - hardly exclusive or rare. It would have been better to invent a manufacturer rather than fly in the face of real-world facts.

#3 - one of the suspects is listed as a 26-year-old who has spent 11 years with the Air Force as an active duty member or as a civilian contractor. That would mean that he joined the Air Force at age 15!

I give this one a grade of B+ - grade lowered thanks to sloppy editing and needless prolonging of the life of an urban legend.

I rate this crime book an A-. The story was interesting as well as the investigation techiques presented. I didn't bond with the lead investigators. I did feel sympathy for some of the characters. Three women are killed in arson fires that burn so hot that very little is left. Meanwhile, there is a boy who lives with an abusive stepfather. The boy has a relationship with a kind pyschic .The boy's story and the fires come together. For its lenght, this book is a quick read. This novel however, could have been edited more.This was my first Ridley Pearson novel and I would read him again.

Fires of extreme ferocity are literally vaporizing women in Seattle. This is no ordinary arson - it burns so hot that there is almost no evidence to examine and the means of setting the fires cannot be determined. Lou Boldt, Seattle Homocide, and Daphne Matthews, forensic psychologist, are at their best. Very intriguing mystery that will keep you reading carefully until the end.

I've been working my way through Ian Fleming this summer, and this book is as much fun as any of the Bond novels. Honey Rider is not the most believable of Bond girls, but the descriptions of Jamaica are marvelous.

Even though Dr. No was dreadfully intolerant by today's standards, had next to no real plot, and neglected to include any substantial characterization, I couldn't put it down.

James Bond is confident, capable, cocky, rather sexist, and perhaps even racist in Dr. No, but the prose is written at such a fast pace, Fleming concocted such a ludicrous villain in Dr. No, and Bond prevailed in such "manly" manners, it's hard not to get engrossed in it all.

Dr. No is a brisk, leisurely read that entertains and quickens the pulse. I didn't find Fleming's writing style terribly adept, but the man knew how to hook a reader, and in the end, some would say that's all that matters.

~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination's Provocation: Volume II: A Collection of Short Stories

If you can get past the parts of the story about the pink spoonbills, or whatever those birds are called, you will see that Doctor No is one of the best novels in the Fleming series. The story starts off slow, but really picks up when Bond arrives on Crab Key. This is just full of adventure, great dialogue and Bond goes through one of his worst beatings in the last chapters of the novel. If you enjoyed the movie, then you will definitely like this 100 times more since it expands and tells more than the movie does, even going into why his name is Doctor No (which isn't his birth name). This is just a really good book that you won't be able to put down once the real action gets started, just be warned that there is a slow beginning.

Published in 1958, "Doctor No" is a transitional novel for the James Bond series. Gone is much of the moral queasiness, realism, and psychological turmoil of earlier tales. In its place is a Walther PPK, vodka martinis shaken not stirred, and a supervillain living in a hidden fortress. Given all that, "Doctor No" should be fun at least, but it's not.

Set in Jamaica, site of earlier series entry "Live And Let Die" and the last Fleming novel, "The Man With The Golden Gun", "Doctor No" has Bond investigating the disappearance of two British secret agents. The trail leads to the title character, a six-foot-six bald man with metal pincers for hands, metal contact lenses, and an interest in harvesting guano from an island just beyond Jamaica called Crab Key. No doubt Bond knows No's up to no good. Soon 007 is in the clutches of a madman, facing an imminent and horrible death just as soon as No explains what he's all about over a nice meal.

Maniac, you call him? No couldn't agree more: "All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal."

What's driving Fleming here is less clear. He seemed to resent having to bring Bond back from death at the end of his last book, really putting the character through the torture test this time. There's a casual cruelty to this book that makes it hard to digest as entertainment. I had a real Quarrel with the fate of one cool Bond ally. And the finale is about as silly as Fleming ever got, Bond fighting tarantulas and an octopus for some silly test of No's that the villain himself can't even bother to watch to completion while there's bird dung to harvest. The villain's fate suggests a sad laugh by a disillusioned author at his readers' gullibility.

Good points include some decent descriptive mileage regarding the mangrove swamps of Crab Key and the social life of Kingston; both the rich whites who live in the affected splendor of the Queen's Club "which for fifty years has boasted the power and frequency of its blackballs", and the blacks who play calypso and drink Red Stripe at scenic outdoor cafes. There's also Honeychile Rider, Bond's latest lady. The movie version famously gave us Ursula Andress in this role, but the character in the book exudes vulnerability more than hotitude, and her backstory is one of the best of any Bond woman.

The movie "Doctor No" was what launched the whole 007 movie phenomenon, still alive and very well at this writing. You can see how it was the right choice, too, as everything here is amped up for cinematic consumption. No lives inside a seaside cliff with a transparent face, so he can watch all the creatures swimming around. Instead of sending men with guns to shoot the birds he doesn't want on his island, he has them drive around in an automotive contraption disguised as a dragon, complete with flame-thrower inside its mouth.

Alas, these ideas would be more welcome if Fleming knew what to do with them. Unfortunately, his much-talked-about "Fleming Sweep" sputters once the story kicks into a higher gear.

"Doctor No" is a series low point that ironically became a franchise high point thanks to the movie. If you are reading the books in order like I am, you have no choice but to read it, but if you are like me, you will find it a surprisingly tedious chore.

Doctor No starts off weakly but finishes strong. Picking up a few weeks after the conclusion of From Russia with Love, Doctor No finds Bond just returning from a long stay in hospital after being poisoned. M is determined to keep Bond out of strenuous duty, so he sends him on a presumably easy mission to investigate the disappearance of British Intelligence's Jamaican operator. And by the way, M seems to add as an afterthought, some people have been dying mysteriously on nearby Crab Key.

Bond resents the easy assignment but has a hunch that the deaths on Doctor No's private island may have something to do with the missing intelligence man and his secretary. He pokes around Jamaica, is sharp enough to detect a poisoned fruitbasket and narrowly avoids being bitten by a giant centipede. He meets up with Quarrel, the Cayman Islander boatman from Live and Let Die, and sneaks onto Crab Key one night. On Crab Key he meets Honeychile "Honey" Rider, who collects rare shells--in the nude, of course--on the island in hopes of earning enough money to correct a broken nose.

Of course, things on Crab Key are not what they seem--or perhaps they are, since there's never much question whether Dr. No is the villain or not. Bond and Honey are captured, tortured, and, in the end, manage to foil Dr. No's plot--and spend some "slave-time" together.

I was disappointed with Doctor No at first. It follows on the heels of From Russia with Love, one of the best Bond novels and one that ends in a major cliffhanger: at the end, Bond collapses to the floor after being poisoned. The end. Doctor No quickly tidies up the loose ends from the last novel and sends Bond on his way to Jamaica. There Bond pokes around, searching for information the reader already knows. But perhaps the biggest disappointment was Honey Rider, who may be the quintessential movie Bond girl, but here is a bit of a cipher.

But while the first third or so of the novel is mediocre, the story dramatically improves once Bond has reached Crab Key and the party beings its trek inland. While there had been only moments of suspense before--the centipede in Bond's bed was a good scene, but only one among a lot of mediocre ones--the suspense steadily builds as Bond and Honey are captured, led before the Doctor himself, and then separated for equally miserable fates.

Bond's dilemma at the climax of the novel reminded me quite a lot of "The Most Dangerous Game," a short story you must Google if you haven't read it. Bond is placed in an obstacle course of Dr. No's design, where he is subjected to claustrophobic spaces, 50-foot drops, cold, heat, spiders, and finally, the sea and its monsters. This section was among the best writing of the Bond series--by this point, I couldn't put the book down.

Doctor No would have been a forgettable entry in the Bond series had it not been for the final half. If you read this novel, be prepared for sometimes boring sections in the first half, but keep reading--the finale is worth it.

Recommended.