Book Description
Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming—what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation—but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end.
A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip completes the “Empire Trilogy” that began with Troubles and the Booker prize-winning Siege of Krishnapur.
Customer Reviews:
Magnificent.......2007-10-04
Farrell is kind of comic Tolstoy except vastly underappreciated, and this novel has it all--laughs, history, gallantry, foolishness, great atmospherics and of course luscious prose. It's like Vanity Fair, except Thackeray joked about not being among the leading war novelists, whereas that mantle fits nicely on Farrell. Get it, you can't go wrong.
The Tolstoy of the Asian Theater.......2007-09-15
A vast and absorbing work of historical fiction, this magnificent novel is set in Singapore, in the months leading to the fall of the city to the Japanese in 1942. The unexpected and total defeat of the commonwealth allies by forces whose fighting abilities they had previously pooh-poohed has been called the worst defeat in British military history. Farrell describes these events very well, both by getting inside the minds of the real-life commanders and by inventing more humble characters on both sides who experience the fighting at first hand. But the main focus of the book is on the civilians, especially the merchant princes whose forefathers founded the colony at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula in the early nineteenth century, and the fictional firm of Blackett and Webb in particular.
The central figure at the start of the book is the rubber millionaire Walter Blackett, immensely proud of his firm's tradition, but concerned about handing it over to the next generation. Recognizing that his son Monty is a useless playboy, he concentrates on finding a suitable match for his elder daughter Joan, who has both brains and beauty. Much of the early part of the book has the romantic wit of Jane Austen, the dynastic maneuvering of John Galsworthy, and the jazz-age pizzazz of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The philosophical antithesis to Walter is Matthew Webb, the estranged son of his long-retired business partner, who arrives to take over his father's estate. Innocent and idealistic, he provides a pair of fresh eyes with which to view the colony. And what he sees first puzzles then horrifies him: exploitation of the native growers, the creation of a dependent economy rather than one that can be locally self-sustaining, and the manipulation of prices through a rubber cartel that holds the rest of the world to ransom. Matthew has much charm; in a rather confused way he eventually discovers passion; by the end of the book he has become a strong man of action; but his naive idealism never leaves him. Here the author who most comes to mind is Tolstoy, with Matthew the spiritual descendant of Levin in ANNA KARENINA.
Farrell is Tolstoyan too in his apparently effortless juggling of world events with personal intimacies, in the range of his characters from the mighty to the insignificant, in the fact that his people grow or decline, in his social awareness and moral conscience, and in his sheer ability to tell a story. Like WAR AND PEACE, this is a long book, and I read it during a three-week period when sometimes I could only manage a chapter or two a day, but never once did I lose the onward momentum or my interest in the characters and their situation; there are very few books that can promise that. The only thing that slightly disappointed me was the love story; Farrell's erotic scenes are somewhat more explicit than Tolstoy's, but there is little sense of grand romance, no Pierre and Natasha, no Kitty worthy of this Levin.
THE SINGAPORE GRIP is the third novel in JG Farrell's so-called "Empire Trilogy." The books are connected in that all deal with various moments in the decline of the British Empire, but they expand notably in scope. The first, TROUBLES, though set in the Irish War of Independence, is essentially a social comedy in form, focused on a group of mostly-elderly people living in a crumbling seaside hotel. The small enclave has become larger in the second novel, THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR, where it is an entire garrison town under siege by sepoys in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. That book also expands the range and number of its characters, enabling the author to portray through them a great variety of attitudes in Victorian Britain towards religion, duty, and colonialism in all its aspects. With THE SINGAPORE GRIP, the enclave is now an entire city-state, and the range is wider still, now extending its political vision to the global scale and having a great deal more to say about commerce and economics. It shows an author Tolstoy-like in his vision, and very close to Tolstoy in his powers.
And the meaning of the title? The Singapore Grip might be any of several things, such as a rattan suitcase or a touch of the flu. But the most special meaning is revealed only at the end, a last touch of the humor that has never been totally absent from this book, no matter how grim the events that it describes.
Historical fiction/commentary at its finest.......2007-08-13
(Four-and-a-half stars) In "The Singapore Grip," Farrell convincingly recreates Singapore, 1942, on the verge of its fall to the Japanese. Each of the novels in Farrell's Empire trilogy are fantastic. "Grip", unlike its predecessors, suffers perhaps from a slight case of logorrhea; even so, it's a formidable, fascinating, at times downright funny book. Farrell has an uncanny ability to root out and deflate pretension and hypocrisy wherever it exists, and that's what he does here, to incredible comic effect. The buffoonish tycoon Walter Blackett is a solid stand-in for British imperalism at its blindest--having convinced himself of the great service he's supposedly done for the natives of Singapore, he struggles to maintain his rubber empire even in the face of steadily encroaching chaos. He is surrounded by characters of depth and interest: the skeptical Dupigny; the well-meaning but naive Matthew Webb; the "divided" Ehrendorf; and the wonderfuly droll Major Archer (already familiar to readers of Farrell's equally-terrific "Troubles"). Each of these men, in their own way, flesh out the novel's vision of colonialism and the pitfalls of world diplomacy.
Amid spectacular battle scenes and a dizzying wealth of information about the rubber industry, tax shelters, and military strategy, Farrell manages to hop nimbly from scenes of tragedy to hilarity to suspense and political commentary. In short, "The Singapore Grip", like the previous works in the Empire trilogy, has it all (including a terrifically ambiguous title--what is the "Singapore Grip" anyway? Read this book and you'll be able to answer that in 1,001 ways.)
Thanks to the New York Review of Books, American readers can now enjoy Farrell's work; which is great, since he deserves the widest possible readership.
Not Very Gripping.......2007-08-02
Perhaps a great part of the reason for these encomiastic reviews is the apt comparison between British hubris then in re the Japanese and current American hubris in re Iraq. - I simply don't know. - I do know, however, that I can not share in this universal laud. The book is a stylistic flop. The writing is clunky and flat. The characters, while admittedly droll at times, aren't very well threshed out. ---But my main objection to the work is that it is tendentious. Any "novel" in which the "novelist" suddenly switches to the first person in one chapter to compare what he is fictionalising to his own experience, only to revert to the fictionalization in the next chapter, and in which the last chapter is a hypothetical political lesson, is not the work of a master stylist, who would have worked these things seamlessly into the novel without these jolting digressions, but the work of a writer whose primary goal is political and would have been better off sticking to the essay.
Readers would be much better off reading an historical account (which one reviewer here provides excerpts of in his review) of the fall of Singapore. - The facts and real characters are actually much more droll and interesting - than reading this...whatever it is.
I suppose I'm wasting my breath. But, really, someone has to put plainly, for instance, that the three meanings of the title are not in any way "clever." Rather, they are contrived and twee. Farrell admits the contrived part in the Afterword to my edition concerning the erotic meaning, revealing that he learned of it from The Chinese Way of Love, but that he has been "unable to resist taking a hand in it myself."
Again, if you must read something about Singapore's fall, read the actual, fascinating history. If you must read something by Farrell, read Troubles, a novel free of all the blunderings here.
Three stars for the historical interest, which may serve as an impetus for the reader to look into historical accounts. But, otherwise, this book just doesn't have much of a hold.
A Ride on the Descending Road of Modern History.......2007-03-07
`Singapore Grip' recreates the world of pre-WWII Singapore. Farrell centers his tale around the Blackett and Webb conglomerate based on rubber plantations, but extends to wide-ranging export-import business. Singapore was created to be a trading center for the British Empire and it succeeded beyond any reasonable expectations.
As war edges closer the air of unreality gets thicker. Even when the Japanese attack Malaya in late 1941, these people just don't get it. Singapore Grip explores this world in detail and from many different perspectives. The higher in the colonial hierarchy, the harder it is for reality to penetrate. Walter Blackett, scion and head delusionist is still planning the company's 50th Jubilee while the Japanese are bombing the island and even Singapore town proper.
`Singapore Grip' is a vignette in what Huxley called "the descending road of modern history". The war gathers slowly, life begins to change, but not dramatically at first. But, the vise inexorably tightens and the world of the characters crumbles under the relentless pressure. Escape from the island seems at first an absurd idea, but it gradually becomes ever more desirable until it finally becomes impossible in the crush at the quays.
If you are tempted to turn away from this book, don't. `Singapore Grip' gathers force and clarity as Farrell slowly adds the pieces to his masterful mosaic and the reader is duly rewarded. The book has been recently reprinted in the excellent New York Review of Books Classics series. Highly recommended.
Book Description
On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips in Singapore face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips to Singapore? How important is Singapore compared to others in terms of the entire global and regional market? How much do the imports of machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips vary from one country of origin to another in Singapore? On the supply side, Singapore also exports machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips. Which countries receive the most exports from Singapore? How are these exports concentrated across buyers? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers? This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips in Singapore. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips for those countries serving Singapore via exports, or supplying from Singapore via imports. It does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models. In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Singapore fits into the world market for imported and exported machinery buckets, shovels, grabs, and grips. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Singapore in particular, is estimated using a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of origin are then calculated across each country market destination. These shares lead to a volume of import and export values for each country and are aggregated to regional and world totals. In doing so, we are able to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of both the value of each market and the share that Singapore is likely to receive this year. From these figures, rankings are calculated to allow managers to prioritize Singapore compared to other major country markets. In this way, all the figures provided in this report are forecasts that can be combined with internal information sources for strategic planning purposes.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism on November 1, 1995. The length of the article is 1003 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: The International Herald Tribune (IHT), owned jointly by The New York Times Co. and the Washington Post Co., is no longer publishing articles that criticize Singapore's authoritarian government. A Singapore judge awarded government officials $678,000 in damages and legal fees for an offending article in the IHT about dynastic politics in Singapore. Press observers say the IHT should leave the small island nation, but IHT publishers respond that different countries have different laws and standards.
Citation Details
Title: Singapore's grip. (libel suit against the International Herald Tribune)
Author: Charles P. Wallace
Publication:
Columbia Journalism Review (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 1995
Publisher: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Volume: v34
Issue: n4
Page: p19(3)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
- Not her best work
- A Fantastic story.
- The Hero was a really big JERK!
- A pleasant surprise...
- Decent Story With Unlikeable Characters
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Where There's Smoke
Sandra Brown
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ASIN: 0446600342 |
Customer Reviews:
Not her best work.......2007-09-08
I'm a big fan of Sandra Brown but this book was not a favorite of mine. Clark's secret wasn't that shocking. Maybe I would have been more suprised by it if I read it back in the day when it was written, but by modern day standards it isn't that uncommon to hear about. Laura was the most respectable character in the whole book. She put up with a lot from her husband, Key, and Jody but still kept her cool. The romance between Janellen and Bowie was more entertaining at times then the one with Laura and Key. Overall it was an ok book but Sandra has written better.
A Fantastic story........2007-09-06
I believe this is the best book by Sandra Brown that I have read. This story had the most intrigue of any of the novels by her that I have read. I thought that she did an excellent job of keeping the five relationships in this story well defined, and extremely understandable. There was no need for me to keep a separate pad and pen to keep track of who was who. The ending was just super and I hope the next book I read by Sandra is just as good as this story. Highly recommend.
The Hero was a really big JERK!.......2007-07-23
Like other reviewer, I also think this book is not one of Brown's best story. This story to me at times got too predicable but the worst part of the book was the hero. Key was so MEAN! He kept on calling Lara an adulteress whore but, yet, he was sleeping with a married woman too. Through out the whole book Key keeps on ridiculing Lara and she takes without a fight. Even after Key learns the truth he still doesn't apologies to Lara, not even once. I wish in the end Key would have done something or said something to show that he really did love Lara but nothing happens. The end made me wish there was an epilogue to this story and I want to see how things turn between Key and Lara, like if they had a kid or something
A pleasant surprise..........2007-06-22
A coworker brought me this book because I had enjoyed another of Sandra Brown's books, and I LOVED IT! This book was full of intricate characters and engaging action that made me wish I could have just sat down and read the book in one afternoon. I would definitely recommend, as this has far excelled most books I have read this year. I loved the twists and turns in plot. A+
Decent Story With Unlikeable Characters.......2007-03-30
Dr. Lara Mallory is a fallen woman since a tabloid incident involving her and Senator Clark Tackett. She had been married at the time, and found anything but a forgiving attitude following the scandal. Finally, after Clark Tackett dies and leaves her a medical practice in his home town of Eden Pass, Texas, she decides to start over there. Besides, she believes the Tackett family owes her, and she's in town to collect a favor from Clark's younger brother, notorious playboy Key. Things are even tougher in Eden Pass, however, because Clark's powerful mother, Jody Tackett, has it out for her. Key seems to share his mother's low opinion, as does his mouse of a sister, Janellen, and the rest of the town. Key despises himself for falling for his dead brother's bimbo, but he can't seem to resist her. At the same time, 33-year-old Janellen is finally breaking out of her shell. When an ex-con named Bowie Cato comes in to Tackett Oil looking for a job, there's something compelling about him, and pretty soon Janellen starts restyling her hair and wearing make-up while she and Bowie sneak around to build their romance.
Sandra Brown can write one heck of a gripping thriller, but sometimes her books seem to have somewhat of a hard edge to them, and this is one of those books. It's as if the author was undergoing difficult personal turmoil at the time, and it came out in her writing. The judgmental attitude that pervades this novel seems appropriate for a small town like Eden Pass, but doesn't fit quite so well with the rest of the country, considering that infidelity did not sink the political aspirations of Bill Clinton, and notoriety has become a form of fame. She tosses words like whore, tramp, and trash around quite liberally, which made it difficult to warm to several of the characters. Perhaps it was done on purpose to underscore the hypocrisy inherent in these characters, but it was still somewhat distasteful.
The story was a good one, with a few good twists and turns along the way, but I also was not horribly fond of the ending. She created and fleshed out a couple of characters simply to kill them off at the end, and another rather innocuous character meets a bad end that didn't seem fitting to his actions throughout the book. Aside from those complaints, however, this is a pretty good novel with a compelling storyline. I just think I would have liked it better if everyone within its pages wasn't quite so mean.
Book Description
"Grilling is fun, it's flavorful, it's playing with fire. It's got smoke, sizzle, and spice. what more could you want?" says cooking teacher and professional chef Eric Treuille. Explore new worlds of cuisine with flame-kissed, taste-intensive, fuss-free recipes that span the globe. No matter what the weather brings, all-year-round grilling is assured with indoor as well as outdoor cooking instructions for every recipe. Great ideas meet big flavors for fabulous food guaranteed to set appetites on fire. Close-up photography illustrates simple basics and advanced skills. And, with each recipe, a "think ahead" tip tells you what can be done in advance. Flames leap off the page as photographs feature real food cooked outdoors over the grill. Each recipe is illustrated in fabulous full-color.
Customer Reviews:
Globally Inspired Grilling.......2005-01-17
"All around the world people cook over open fire. It's how cooking began and it has stood the test of time."
Eric Treuille and Birgit Erath have created an entire world of globally inspired recipes for the grill. Birgit loves to travel and owns a spice store with over 1,800 culinary flavorings called The Spice Shop. Eric is a favorite author who started cooking in his uncle's boulangerie in France. Together they have created a feast for the eyes and a sense of nostalgia for cooking outdoors.
After going through a number of gas grills, I think I'm going back to charcoal for a while because cooking over charcoal seems to be much more of an art form. The authors give instructions for making a fire and checking the temperature of the coals.
An entire section is dedicated to spices and you might want to look for some smoked paprika or Pomegranate molasses. While most of the recipes use ingredients you may already have in your kitchen, there are some more exotic ideas. Annatto seeds are used in the achiote seasoning and this in turn is used in the Recado Rojo - a honey marinade for pork chops, shrimp or chicken. You are truly creating recipes from scratch and you can make up seasoning mixtures from the spices you already own.
Sample Recipes:
Chargrilled Sirloin Steak with Garlic Parsley Butter
Cilantro Beef Satays with Honey Tamarind Glaze
Lamb Tikka Masala
Spicy Masala Shrimp
Sweet Chili Chicken
Lemon Ginger Chicken Drumsticks with Mango and Mustard Seed Glaze
Chargrilled Corn on the Cob with Cilantro Chili Butter
Chargrilled Pineapple with Sweet Rum Glaze
Lemon Tahini Sauce
Avocado Mango Salsa
Honey Miso Sauce
Black Olive Butter
"Grilling" even has a recipe for Mayonnaise, Focaccia and Spicy Pita Chips. There are ideas for advance preparation and lists of grilling equipment.
~TheRebeccaReview.com
Great Grilling Book!.......2003-06-02
This is a truly terrific cookbook, specifically about grilling. Excellent recipes, instructions, photographs.
Great grilling cookbook.......2002-09-12
This is a great cookbook for outdoor or indoor grilling. Special attention paid to sauces and prep, tells you how to do it. Graet book
Awesome.......2001-08-24
Have tried half of the receipes. Not a bad one yet. In fact, most have been very good! Sauces, marinades, and seasoned/flavored butters are particularly good.
Great book for the summer!.......2001-07-31
I purchased this book in May and believe I have tried 90% of the recipes! Every one is great! This is a great book to give as a gift to all those who love to barbeque.
Average customer rating:
- Smokin' at Home
- Great recipies
- Real smoked ribs aren't boiled first
- Its ?????
- Good but not great
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Where There's Smoke, There's Flavor : Real Barbecue--The Tastier Alternative to Grilling
Richard Langer
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Get Smokin': 190 Award-Winning Smoker Oven Recipes
ASIN: 0316513377 |
Book Description
This book tells you everything you need to know to turn your backyard grill into a true slow-cooking barbecue machine. Anyone who uses an outdoor grill to cook food quickly, at high heat, is failing to realize the flavourful advantages of smoke cooking. This comprehensive guide gets down to basics with hundreds of lip-smacking recipes as well as imaginative approaches to barbecuing all kinds of meat, poultry, and vegetables.
Customer Reviews:
Smokin' at Home.......2007-05-09
This book is for those who want REAL bbq - chicken, pork, beef, whatever - not just something grilled. Presents ideas for everyday grillers to use to create good bbq in their own yard without spending big dollars on special equipment. If you like to cook and grill, this book's for you.
Great recipies.......2007-01-09
Hubby got this book and he has already started to cook some stuff out of it! He read the entire thing from cover to cover in one night! Great book!
Real smoked ribs aren't boiled first.......2005-08-24
Have to agree with some of the other reviewers. This isn't the book to get if you're new to smoking foods. Much better books are out there. The recipies were fine until I got to the part about how to prepare ribs. None of the other books I have on smoking would even dare bring up boiling your ribs before placing them on the grill. Yet, recipe after rib recipe calls for boiling your ribs and then throwing them on the grill. It's true that boiling will render the fat and make the meat tender but it'll also make it bland. Why am I harping on this? Because the real test for quality smoked foods includes ribs (brisket and pork shoulder are the other tests).
Its ?????.......2005-06-11
I found this book to only be okay and boring it needs zaz not blaa..That is what it is blaa. I would pass it on or give it to a in-law then to keep it.It has good reciepes but no more then the other ones and it is a basic book. I think ,if this is to have a bang it needs more then what it has..
Good but not great.......2004-11-17
As another reviewer said, this book should not be the first book an a BBQers library. Although it has numerous recipes (including smoked vegetables and 17 different mops & sauces), it lacks the basics. There are no basic "recipes" for whole turkey, salmon or baby back ribs. There isn't even a temperature chart. The author discusses the difference between grilling and BBQing, and different types of smokers. There is a good discussion of wood types, but I wish I had read the other reviews before buying it.
Average customer rating:
- A good old-fashioned detective story
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Where There's Smoke
Ed McBain
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Hard-Boiled
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ASIN: 0446604836 |
Customer Reviews:
A good old-fashioned detective story.......1999-07-30
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE is a good old-fashioned detective story featuring a retired police detective and a stolen corpse. There's just enough misdirection to keep the plot interesting. The characters aren't particularly deep, but they are believable and interesting. Even though apparently set and written in the '60s, the novel isn't particularly dated. If you like the better TV detectives (and the rare episodes which are actually interesting), you'll love this detective, and like this story.
Book Description
If Sloane Hillyard's invention saved the life of one firefighter, it would be worth everything--even if it was too late to save her own brother. But her biggest hurdle lay ahead: To convince sensual, skeptical Captain Nick Trask to give it a chance--without getting burned herself…
As for Nick, he could walk into a burning building, no problem. But the inferno that Sloane ignited presented a different type of challenge. Still, he was up for it. Now all he had to do was convince Sloane it was possible to enjoy the warmth of the fire…without getting consumed by the flames…
Customer Reviews:
Good story, Selfish heroine.......2005-12-09
I've been in a romance mood lately - and as usual, harlequin/silhouette has been my target.
This story is that of Sloan, an engineer who has developed a product designed to save fire-fighters' lives. Her own brother was killed in a fire, and she hopes to make that situation not occur again.
She is an emotional isolationist. She's so afraid to be hurt again (she's also an orphan) that she won't let her emotions get involved with anyone. Throughout this book, and her affair with Nick, the hero, it's obvious that she doesn't look farther than her tragedy in living her life.
I didn't find her revelation to be believable. A person turned so inwardly on her own pain is not going to change that quickly. I also don't think Nick would wait around so patiently for her - she has done nothing really to make his love for her grow. So, in reality, he's probably one of those who wants to save a girl.
If this were real life, their relationship would fall apart as soon as she started to heal herself.
In fact, her own attitude kinda torqued me. I don't have patience with people who can't get themselves out of an emotional rut. So, I didn't really enjoy this story.
(*)>
Powerful Story.......2005-11-22
Where There's Smoke by Kristin Hardy is an emotional, touching book.
Inventor Sloane Hillyard has vowed to save firefighter lives with her Orienteer System. Her brother died in a fire and Sloane doesn't want another loved one to suffer such pain. She has her work cut out for her in convincing firefighter Nick Trask to test her product.
Captain Nick Trask has been through the promises of new, better and safer equipment before. Once the elections are over the budget is cut and no new equipment can be bought. So he is not very open to Sloane and her invention. But after a few test runs he sees its value. He also sees something in Sloane.
Sloane and Nick start a temporary affair but it turns deeper for them both. But Sloane isn't sure she can afford to lose another loved one to a fire.
Where There's Smoke is a sensational book. You feel like you are there right in the middle of the fires. Sloane and Nick are a compelling couple and you find yourself routing for them to succeed.
Customer Reviews:
There's definately fire here.......2003-05-23
When firefighter Shane Cummings heard that there might be a woman trapped in the burning factory, she risked his life to save her even after his commander orders him out of the building. Finding lovely Emily Barone under debris from the fallen ceiling, he quickly carries her to safety. When Emily awakes in Shane's arms, she knows she is safe. Later when recovering in the hospital, Emily cannot remember her family, the circumstances around the start of the fire or even who she is; the only thing she remembers is how safe she felt in Shane's arms.
Shane tries desperately to fight the attraction he feels for Emily, after all, she comes from the wealthy Barone family and she has amnesia. He doesn't want to take advantage of her. But, can he fight the growing feelings he has for her?
This was a great story. Shane and Emily are immediately attracted to each other and their relationship sizzles. Emily's family is a little too clingy but I really liked Shane's uncle.
Average customer rating:
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Where There's Smoke, There's Salmon: The Book of Jewish Proverbs
Michael Levin
Manufacturer: Citadel
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ASIN: 0806521465 |
Customer Reviews:
Will love blossom the second time around?.......2005-05-02
In "Where there's smoke" we experience the reunion of Thais and Lucien 15 years after they were married for a few hours in Las Vegas. They married in a Las Vegas wedding after a few days of a fast and furious romance. Thais suffered from severe "morning after" regrets and quickly had the marriage annulled.
Now fifteen years later, they meet again as Lucien attempts to help a little girl who has become separate from her parent in a large department store. Even as he offers to let her use his cell phone to call her Mom, he notices her physical resemblance to his lost love and ex-wife Thais.
In an unlikely turn, the mother of the lost girl is indeed his lost love. The feels that Thais and Lucien shared start to simmer again when they see each other. This time however, largely due to new responsibilities and a more recent ex-husband than Lucien, Thais takes the relationship at a much slower pace.
Thais and Lucien are both likeable characters and Lucien's family members, who play a large role in the novel, are likeable as well. There are points where Thais's deference to the manipulations of her 11 year old daughter and ex-husband are frustrating, not to mention predictable. Also in spots the detail given about extraneous characters is overwhelming - e.g. in one description of a dinner party the author spends far too many words and pages describing a large number of the people in attendance. If you've read previous novels involving the characters maybe the details will appeal to you, otherwise it is extremely distracting.
All in all this was a warm and fuzzy story about long lost loves reunited. A bit unlikely in parts, but large satisfying nonetheless.
Fanning the flames..........2005-04-09
It has been many years since Lucien Ballard and Thais Parker did the unthinkable...got married in Las Vegas after only knowing each other for a few days. When the sensual fog, and the alcohol induced haze, cleared the next morning, Thais realized she may have made a big mistake. So without a word to Lucien, she took off and had the marriage annulled. Fast forward fifteen years to the present, and Lucien and Thais run into each other again in Lucien's hometown. Sparks fly, unresolved hurts arise, and the love they felt for each other so many years ago consumes them once again.
Betttye Griffin has created yet another wonderful love story in WHERE THERE'S SMOKE. The familial relationships between the characters were real and not overly dramatic. The romance was strong and pure, making one believe in love at first sight. I truly enjoyed this book, and encourage all romance readers everywhere to pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed.
Reviewed by Renee Williams
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers
Product Description
4 massmarket paperback Titles McBain - Downtown - Guns - Another Part of the City - Where There's Smoke
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- Therese Raquin (Penguin Classics)
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- Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (The Penguin American Library)
- A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier
- Ailey Spirit: The Journey of an American Dance Company
- Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
- Animal Farm and 1984
Books Index
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