"Are you Geniver Loxley?" Her voice is soft, with a hint of a Midlands accent...
"I...I..." she stammers.
"I wait, my heart suddenly beating fast. Has Art been in an accident? Or someone else I know? The door is still on its
chain. I open it properly. The woman presses her lips together. Her eyes are wide with fear and embarrassment...
"It's..." The woman takes a deep breath. "It's your baby."
"I star at her. "What do you mean?"
"She hesitates. "She's alive." The woman's dark eyes pierce through me. "Your baby, Beth, is alive."
~~~
"My head feels like a million tiny bombs are exploding inside it. Could Dr. Rodriguez really have pretended
Beth had died, then paid his staff to keep quiet about it? My mind shrieks that these are lies and yet, as I
look into Lucy O'Donnell's eyes, my instinct tells me she is sincere..."
~~~
"My head feels like a million tiny bombs are exploding inside it. Could Dr. Rodriguez really have pretended
Beth had died, then paid his staff to keep quiet about it? My mind shrieks that these are lies and yet, as I
look into Lucy O'Donnell's eyes, my instinct tells me she is sincere..."
~~~
Sophie McKenzie
A librarian's quote on the front of the ARC for this book finishes with "This is definitely one of my favorite books of 2013..." It could have been for me too... In fact, about half way through the book I "almost" for the first time ever, thought about turning to the ending to see what happened!
If I had, I'm not sure I would have kept reading...
Shortly thereafter I picked up on exactly what was happening for one character and I identified the character who started everything. When that happened, I zoned in on those characters, watching...
I was not happy... But I realized that the author could go a number of different ways with the plot, so I read on.
The psychological suspense of this book is phenomenal...From a professional standpoint, I could not in any way fault the book. There are some things, however, that an individual just cannot totally override--personal beliefs.
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| http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/school_shootings/index.html Newtown, Conn., School Shootings |
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| "But none of it proves Beth is alive. And Art surely doesn't have anything to do with any of it. Even if he was capable of sustaining such a lie, why would he do so? After all, what possible reason could my husband, who so badly wants a child, have for pretending that our daughter died? ~~~ |
If I closed my eyes to the knowledge of child trafficking, teenage kidnapping for sex trade, etc., and think this is just a story...
I, too, would rave about the "gut-wrenching" feelings this novel generates, initially....
Included is an interview with the author. I was hoping that she would say that this was going to be followed by another novel. Even then, though, each book must stand alone and the followup might never be read.
I do not recommend this book if you care about children. Or, if you do, be prepared to perhaps end the book with what I can only describe as a "bad taste in your mouth."* Sure, it's a perfect way to leave the reader hanging, possibly for another book... Except, I would not read it; the author and publisher have already lost this reviewer.
A shame really...
This is the author's first Adult novel. Perhaps she forgot between the beginning and the last two pages that often it is adults who create the children they become...And those adults, whoever they are, would read this and glory in what they'd done to their child...
I would not normally have reviewed this book, rather I'd have done a commentary on it; however, I agreed to review it, having an ARC book provided. Like I said, this is an excellent thriller, but I've got to at least take a point off for personal opinion, don't you think? Do check out other reviews; perhaps I'm only one of the few readers who believe that books, like violent movies, can affect our children greatly through the adults who surround them... and read...
GABixlerReviews
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| Dog Taste Buds - Mine Too, I Guess! LOL |
*Chris Smith: So give us the bottom line, taking a financial analogy then, what does this mean in terms of how this behaviour maps onto what we actually do in real life?
Kat Arney: Well, the researchers think that this means that moral disgust and outrage actually has similar evolutionary roots to physical disgust, and they think that this physical response to something nasty has probably been co-opted during our social evolution to express our disgust at social and moral situations that we don’t like.
Chris Smith: Indeed.
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