Book Description
It is 1540, and Matthew Shardlake, the lawyer renowned as “the sharpest hunchback in the courts of England,” is pressed to help a friend's young niece who is charged with murder. Despite threats of torture and death by the rack, the girl is inexplicably silent. Shardlake is about to lose her case when he is suddenly granted a reprieve—one that will ensnare him in the dangerous schemes of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's feared vicar-general.
In exchange for two more weeks to investigate the murder, Shardlake accepts Cromwell's dangerous assignment to find a lost cache of “dark fire,” a legendary weapon of mass destruction. Cromwell, out of favor since Henry's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, is relying on Shardlake to save his position at court, which is rife with treasonous conspiracies.
With its wonderful attention to period detail and its brilliant handling of suspense, Dark Fire is sure to win comparisons with Margaret George's Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and captivate readers of Philippa Gregory and David Liss.
Customer Reviews:
Not as good as DISSOLUTION, but better than many in this genre ..........2007-08-04
Sansom made a strong start out of the gate with DISSOLUTION. So, perhaps I had inflated expectations for the second book. But while it doesn't live up to DISSOLUTION, it is a better historical mystery than many I have read.
The author goes into great detail about the times, which I like. But the main mystery - in this case, there were two - seemed contrived. As he explains at the end of the book, no one knows what prompted Cromwell's sudden removal from office.
Certainly, he had lost credibility with Henry VIII over his position on the Cleves marriage. But why so public and dramatic a removal, no one knows. The "mystery" fills in the blanks, and unfortunately, it's too contrived.
I think the strengths of the book are in the historical setting and the feel the reader gets for the society and politics of the times. If you like Bruce Alexander, you will probably like this book.
Great service.......2007-08-04
Thank you for the great service...quick shipping, the book was just as described. I would be happy to use your services again. Thank you
Charming Whodunit.......2007-08-02
This is the second of author Sansom's historical mysteries, both set in Tudor England at the time of the Reformation, and this one equals or surpasses the first, Dissolution. Sansom has created an engaging sleuth, attorney Matthew Shardlake, who has a brilliant intellect in a crippled body. I am delighted to get to know Shardlake, as he is one of the more engaging personalities I have encountered in the many works of historical fiction I have read. In this episode, Shardlake and his new sidekick are commissioned by the redoubtable Thomas Cromwell to recover a stash of the old time weapon of mass destruction "Greek Fire" and its ancient formula which are in the hands of viscious unknown enemies. At the same time, Shardlake is retained by a despairing uncle to defend his niece who has been charged with murder and is incarcerated in Newgate Prison, refusing to speak in her own defense.
The plot unfolds as our indefatigable hero to's and fro's across London in his efforts to uncover the Greek Fire plotters while simultaneously working to discover the identity of the true murderer and exonerate the wrongly accused niece. This is pretty standard stuff. I appreciate, however, that Sansom is careful to wrap up all loose ends, does not drop red herrings that are never woven into the story, and bothers to give the reader closure as to the ultimate fates of all the players. Not all mystery writers are this scrupulous of their readers' concerns.
The best part of this novel, however, is Shardlake himself. The author clearly has much affection for his creation and our hardworking hunchback is a fellow I would like to meet. He is a man of conscience and integrity at a time when most men were scrambling to protect themselves and their interests in the chaos of political and religious upheaval. We are allowed into Shardlake's own private conflicts about faith, morality and the law - - not in a dry, but in a very human, way. I found Shardlake's shy courtship of Lady Honor to be endearing, as his self-consciousness and uncertainty are a welcome relief from the swaggering bravado of too many fictional "heros." I look forward to reading the next installment and spending more time with our mild-mannered detective.
This is not exactly Tolstoy, but is a very entertaining and well-written read. Highly recommended.
Sansom does it again!.......2007-04-26
After the stunning debut of DISSOLUTION, Sansom continues his saga of Tudor politics and intrigue. Wonderful plotting. Meticulously drawn characters. More of the deliciously vivid description that draws you in and keeps you reading.
Matthew Shardlake is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating fictional characters in ages.
Somewhat contrived and slow off the mark, but . . . .......2006-09-25
This historical mystery places a hunchbacked lawyer, Matthew Shardlake, in the time of King Henry VIII's London as reformist Protestantism contests for religious supremacy with the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of King Henry's break with the papacy over marital matters. Shardlake, formerly a minion of the Earl of Essex, Thomas Cromwell, is engaged in a number of mundane legal matters when he is recruited to help an eighteen year old girl condemned to death for killing her younger cousin, the lad Ralph, heir to the Wentworth clan's fortune, a self-made family keen on moving up the social ladder. With barely time to save the girl he is inducted back into Thomas Cromwell's orbit to help sort out still another mystery: who controls a potentially world shaking state secret, the rediscovered formula and mechanism for the long lost Byzantine 'super weapon,' Greek Fire?
The story is marred by a certain heavy handedness in the use of detail in the descriptions as the author endeavours to recreate the lost world of London of that era in all its gross unpleasantries. He seemingly leaves no stone unturned and no opportunity overlooked to call to our attention the vileness of the era, though it's reasonable to suppose that the narrator would not have been so attuned to such things since it was the world he knew, after all. Matthew Shardlake who tells this tale is also somewhat tiresome, particularly in how he refers to his horse, almost as though it were another character in the story, and in his endless complaints about the back pain he must endure. He is also a bit too naive, it seems to me, in dealing with the London underworld, but this is a not uncommon occurrence among certain protagonists of mysteries these days. There's also a certain artificiality about the plot and how it's constructed which grates and much about the tale that is predictable. Sometimes our intrepid heroes (Shardlake has the benefits of one of Cromwell's personal minions as well) seem to waste an awful lot of time going back and forth to do the same things more than once, making their efforts seem all the more bizarre as an investigation since this obviously puts them in the position of alerting those they are investigating way more than they should.
And yet, after I had pushed my way through the first half, I must admit to having become curious enough about matters to see how Sansom solves the mystery of the missing Greek Fire as well as how our hero clears the name and saves the life of poor Elizabeth Wentworth, locked away in the hideous "Hole" beneath London's most notorious prison, chained and condemned to lie in her own filth for twelve days as Shardlake scurries about day after day in the mean London streets, chasing chimeras, juggling cases and fighting for his life against thugs, hooligans and the rascals of the nobility. Will Cromwell triumph? Will Greek Fire be rediscovered? Will Henry VIII take a new wife? The story actually started to work for me though it was certainly marred earlier on. I ended up reading it through and glad enough to learn about the awful culture and civilization out of which our own eventually arose.
SWM
Book Description
The Great Fire is an extraordinary love story set in the immediate aftermath of the great conflagration of the Second World War. In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier finds that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself. In the looming shadow of world enmities resumed, and of Asia's coming centrality in world affairs, a man and a woman seek to recover self-reliance, balance, and tenderness, struggling to reclaim their humanity. The Great Fire is a story of love in the aftermath of war by 'purely and simply, one of the greatest writers working in English today.' (Michael Cunningham)
Download Description
The year is 1947. The great fire of the Second World War has convulsed Europe and Asia. In its wake, Aldred leith, an acclaimed hero of the conflict, has spent two years in China at work on an account of world-transforming change there. Son of a famed and sexually ruthless novelist, Leith begins to resist his own self-sufficiency, nutured by the war. Peter Exley, another veteran and an art historian by training, is prosecuting war crimes committed by the Japanese. Both men have narrowly escaped death in battle, and Leith saved Exley's life. The man have maintained long-distance friendship in a postwar loneliness that haunts them both, and which has swallowed Exley whole. now in their thirties, with their youth behind them and their world in ruins, both must invent the future and retrieve a private humanity. Arriving in occupied Japan to record the effects of the bomb at Hiroshima, Leth meets Benedict and Helen Criscoll, the Australian son and daughter of a tyrranical medical administrator. Benedict, at twenty, is doomed by a rare degenerative disease. Helen, still younger, is inseperable from her brother. Precocious, brilliant, sensitive, at home in the books they read together, these two have been, in Leith's words, delivered by literature. The young people capture Leith's sympathy; indeed, he finds himself struggling with his attraction to this girl whose feelings are as intense as his own and from whom he will soon be fatefully parted. A deeply observed story of love and seperation, of disillusion and recovered humanity, The Great Fire marks the much-awaited return of an author whose novel The Transit of Venus won the National Book Critics Circle Award and, twenty years after its publication, is considered a modern classic.
Customer Reviews:
shirley hazzard is a gift to the world!.......2007-08-25
A book brilliant in conception, sublime in beauty, and crafted of delicate and profound power, The Great Fire continues to establish Shirley Hazzard as one of the pre-eminent prose stylists and novelists of international reach at work today. The novel won the National Book Award, and is a striking compliment to her 1981 National Book Critics Circle Award winning The Transit of Venus.
Maybe my favorite novel I've read recently.......2007-08-21
Hazzard's multi-character romance in 1947 and 1948, is set in the Far East and in England, a world recovering from the deep ravages of WWII. The main plot centers around a romance between a decorated English war veteran named Aldred Leith (age 32) and a young girl, Helen Driscoll (age 16), with an important subsidiary character, an Australian friend of the Brit, Peter Exley, who is pursuing war crimes prosecution in Hong Kong.
This is just an amazing novel. It's one of those books that has some flaws but is so terrific that I just have to disregard them and strongly recommend it to you. Hey, "Jane Eyre" and "Crime and Punishment" have serious flaws, too. I'll briefly summarize the problems: I think Hazzard's generally beautiful and understated prose can tend towards the purposefully obscure -- a little more information is sometimes needed (this novel is not for the dim) -- although the story is very clear, even in its details. I also didn't like that the British protagonist's main act of heroism in war was never described (only the events behind his less important decoration were, as I understood it). Most importantly, the Australian's story was never resolved, which I think is a serious error.
Finally, I also want to point out that there is some serious suspense about the final resolution of the plot. Which makes a few of the negative reviews below kind of funny.
Go read this novel. I loved it. I mean loved it.
beautiful and smart.......2007-07-02
I find it humorous that people gave this book a bad review because the author used too many big words. I think you do have to be knowledgable about history and used to reading literature to find the rhythm of this book. This author is amazingly brilliant in terms of history and literary device.
What breathtaking descriptions and heartbreaking sincerity.......2007-06-04
The characters in this book are so real, so tender and injured and brutal with each other, 1940's Japan really blossoms for the reader. The historical perspective, the underlying love story, the crystal clear descriptions of the land, make this an interesting book.
The Great Fire: A Novel.......2007-03-23
Ugh! What a boring book!
In my Top Five Boring Books! (Snow, Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Piano Tuner, Accidental Tourist) just to give you perspective.
Read Magical Seeds, or Lolita, or some Steinbeck.
Don't waste your time here.
Product Description
Part novel and part autobiography, The Great Fire of London is one of the great literary undertakings of the last fifty years. At various times exasperating, daunting, moving, dazzling, and challenging, it has its origins in Jacques Roubaud's attempt to come to terms with the death of his young wife Alix, whose presence both haunts and gives meaning to every page. Having failed to write his intended novel ("The Great Fire of London"), instead he creates a book that is about that failure, but in the process opens up the world of the creative process, which is at once an attempt to bring order to his ravaged personal life and to construct an intricate literary project that functions according to strict rules, one of them being the palindrome. But rather than a confessional novel about himself and his wife, Roubaud follows in the tradition of the troubadours, where the objects of grief and love are identified obliquely and through literary artifice. At all times, Alix and his anguished loss of her are paramount, but usually couched or disguised by the writer's obsessive need to filter that anguish through reflections of the art of writing.
The Great Fire of London consists of a main text ("story") and two sets of digressions ("interpolations" and "bifurcations"). Although best to read the insertions as they appear (indicated in the main text with cross-reference markers), this is an "interactive" text in which readers can decide for themselves how they wish to proceed. Roubaud's novel stands as a lyrical counterpart of those great postmodern masterpieces by fellow Oulipians Georges Perec (Life: A User's Manual) and Italo Calvino (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler).
Customer Reviews:
hypertext novel - not for those of linear mind.......1999-04-29
hypertext novel - excellent text read and enjoy
Average customer rating:
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The Great Fire
Manufacturer: Recorded Books, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: 0788720775 |
Product Description
Recorded on three cassettes and comes in clamshell case.
Average customer rating:
- Good Book
- Disappointed
- Awful
- Doesn't Live Up To Potential
- Can NOT put this one down!
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The Pact: A Love Story
Jodi Picoult
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0061150142
Release Date: 2006-08-29 |
Book Description
Until the phone calls came at three o'clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead—shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact—leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult—one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction—comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.
Customer Reviews:
Good Book.......2007-08-30
Jodi Picoult is and excellent author. I enjoy her books. This book could have used a bit more development of Emily's character. I felt like I wanted to know Emily better through out the book.
Disappointed.......2007-08-17
I agree with other reviewers who were disappointed with this book. Although it was beautifully written, I felt cheated, ripped off, and let down at the end. The plot was not sufficiently developed through to the end. There were too many blanks to be filled in, too many loose ends, too much left unsaid and undone. There was far too much drama and not enough substance. I think it's fine to leave a few things in an ambiguous state at the end of a novel, to leave something to the reader's imagination, but c'mon, Picoult, FINISH THIS BOOK! Also, the storyline and dialogue during the trial got tedious and ridiculous. Was I, as the reader, supposed to feel any sympathy for Chris? I surely did not.
Awful.......2007-08-14
I am so disappointed after finishing this book. None of my questions were answered and not in the good way where it's left to your imagination. The characters are superficial. We never get beneath the surface with any of them and least of all Emily. I feel I knew Emily the least and that is the character I really wanted, and felt I should, know deep down. So many aspects are hard to believe. I really wanted to like this book and thought I did while I was reading it but for it to be so heart wrenching and then come out with nothing is really frustrating!
Doesn't Live Up To Potential.......2007-08-13
I'm a Jodi Picoult fan, and I've enjoyed all her books. The Pact is my least favorite.
It is captivating, as the others are. I read this book in two days, waiting for a fuller development and conclusion. I like the Then/Now format Ms. Picoult used. Overall, though, this story never came up to my expectations.
I know a great deal about Chris, but Emily's character wasn't developed fully enough. I want to know exactly what her motivations were. I kept expecting to see other secrets revealed about her family. They weren't there.
The ending disappointed me. It felt unrealistic and contrived.
Can NOT put this one down!.......2007-07-12
Picoult writes an amazing story of two childhood friends who become romantically involved as teenagers. A pact links the two even after one of them commits suicide.
Although it is written to perfection, it is painfully hard to read as a mother. The reality of not knowing your children as well as you think you do is upsetting but eye opening. This is another one of Jodi Picoult's must reads.
Average customer rating:
- thought I would never get through this book.
- hard to put down!
- The last of Picoult's books for me
- Character flaws taint "love story"
- Disturbing, Compelling, Couldn't Put it Down...
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The Pact: A Love Story (P.S.)
Jodi Picoult
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 006085880X
Release Date: 2006-02-21 |
Book Description
From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00
A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
Customer Reviews:
thought I would never get through this book........2007-10-06
This was my first Jodi Picoult book, and may be my last. I felt like I was climbing up a steep hill, never to reach the top. The book starts out with a murder ?, suicide ?, and goes downhill from there. Tedious trial, and many unanswered questions. Why was this teenage girl so miserable and unhappy? Some hints of abuse, but nothing is clear or validated. Her parents were clueless. Depressing story, with really no answers, not a romantic love story.
hard to put down!.......2007-09-28
This was the first Jodi Picoult book that I had read and I was overall very pleased. It is the type of book, that is extemely hard to put down. The book's set up makes the reader feel as if he or she is a detective, trying to gather clues to figure out the case. The characters in the book are the type people, one would run into on a daily basis, making the book easy to relate to. Although, I did enjoy reading the book, I was extremely dissappointed by the ending. I felt as though Picoult left the reader hanging with more questions and I wanted more answers. Overall, I would suggest this book to anyone who is looking for a book that keeps one's attention, and likes the aspect of trying to figure out a crime.
The last of Picoult's books for me.......2007-09-25
This is the fourth book by this author that I have read and I must say it will be the last. They all have been disappointing
Jody Picoult's books follow a formula: the controversial/shocking theme; the lawyers; the jail/prison (she dwells too much on this area) and the twisty, contrived endings.
Enough.
Character flaws taint "love story".......2007-09-16
The Golds and Hartes are neighbors, good friends, and absolutely thrilled when their children Emily and Chris fall in love. The teens are inseparable, but when Emily is found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, Chris is charged with her murder. He says it was a suicide pact that he was unable to complete. His trial and the disintegration of the Golds and Hartes' friendship ensue.
The rest of this review deals with characters' actions, so it's a bit spoiler-ish and you may not want to read this review if you only know the basics of what this book is about. (I don't spoil the ending below, though).
This was my first Jodi Picoult book, and I got wrapped up in the story right away. When I finished it, though, there were many things about the main characters that bother me and kind of make it hard for me to give this book a 4 or 5-star rating.
It frankly is just very hard to swallow that Chris would not only fail to tell anyone about Emily's suicidal thoughts, but also that he would assist her and bring the gun to the carousel, all the time hoping that he would be able to "stop" her. That, even though he had been unable to convince her for the weeks or months to drop this plan, maybe in the last moment he might be able to say a magic word that would all of a sudden change her mind. Though I absolutely love her writing, the thing with some of Jodi Picoult's characters is that they have to do absolutely stupid things to get into the situations they get into, and it is hard to sympathize with the protagonist when they've just behaved with no wisdom or reason. It is hard to buy the story when the character's actions are plot-driven and not character-driven. As others have said, Chris seems to be reasonable and responsible in most other ways.
It is also hard to sympathize with Chris when he is pressuring a hesitant Emily to have sex with him. I am just not feeling the love of this "love story," as the book is sub-titled, when the boy pressures the girl to sleep with him, the girl sees the boy as more of a brother or cousin than a lover, and the boy does nothing to help the girl when she's suicidal except eventually contribute to her actually succeeding in the suicide. I do not see that as romantic or something that involves actual love. Ultimately, maybe Emily felt she was better off dead, but the disaster she left behind showed that she selfishly had little care for what her suicide would do to anyone else, least of all Chris.
That being said, Picoult is such a good writer, and she definitely deserves kudos for the topics she tackles. I think she did a good job of showing different sides to teen suicide. Chris was just a protagonist I found hard to sympathize with.
Disturbing, Compelling, Couldn't Put it Down..........2007-09-13
This is the fourth book I have read by Jodi Picoult. So far, they have all been heart wrenching, insightful, thought provoking and compelling reads. Ms. Picoult has a way of getting inside the mind of her characters, especially the teenagers. I think one reason some people have problems with her plots or the actions of her characters (as some have said in this book) is that you really have to forget all of your adult feelings and go back to being a teenager. You have to go back to that time when acceptance was everything and you lived in the moment and each of those moments was so profound in your mind. As Emily states in this book, she sees herself now and she sees herself in ten years, but can't see how she can get from point A to point B.
This book takes on the issue of teen suicide. Parts of it are excruciating to read. Emily's thought processes seem illogical at times when filtered through the mind of an adult. At times I wanted to scream at her and tell her that wasn't the way to do it. This book makes us also wonder just how well we really do know our kids and reminds us that no matter how close we are to them, they do in fact have a life that is separate from us.
All in all, though parts are difficult to read, I highly recommend it, especially for parents of teenagers, and for teens themselves.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing! Not up to Picoult's standards.......2007-03-21
What a disappointment. I've read everything published by Ms. Picoult and loved nearly all of it until this book. She fails to create a plausible picture of the factors compelling Em to be desperately suicidal, and why-oh-why wouldn't Chris try to get the woman he loves help? -- that is help to live, not to die? Unlike Picoult's usual work, The Pact is awkward and slow-moving, and the plot is full of holes. Too bad; not up to Picoult's standards.
Addicting.......2006-12-30
As a 19 year old Engineering student, I find free-time incredibly hard to come by, and when I do manage to have some... I'll admit, I often spend it watching brain-numbing television to recuperate.
I received this book as a birthday gift, and started reading it during a study-break, fully intending to get no more than possibly 30 pages through it, and THEN watch a little TV. However, once I started reading it, I literally couldn't put it down. I hear people say this about books all the time, but I've never truly experienced it.
This book began near the end of the actual story being told, and through a series of flash-backs relays a story that is so tragically heart-wrenching that I soon found myself addicted.
The reason that I couldn't stop reading was that because of the way the book was set up, I already knew how it ended; it was just a matter of finding out why and how. I found myself empathizing with the parents, because just as they were trying to come to grips with the reality of the tragic incident, so was I.
By the end of the book I still found myself wondering why that had to be the outcome. This book was by no means as satiating as someone who is expecting the 'answer-to-life' wants it to be, but I think that's the very nature of suicide - is there ever a situation where it truly HAS to be the solution?
I have recommended this book to all of my friends, and now I'm taking the time to recommend it here to anybody who enjoys angst, romance or just all-around well written stories. Enjoy!!
One of Picoult's best about love and tragic loss-A+++.......2006-11-09
This was one of those books that are hard to lay down. Picoult is one of my favorite authors and I don't think she knows how to write a bad story.
The Harte's (Nick's parents), and the Gold's, (Emily's parents), were neighbors and the very best of friends. Their children were practically born together just a few months apart from each other. And Nick and Emily were inseparable growing up. They were true soulmates. But things changed when Emily becomes pregnant with Chris's child, and she becomes depressed wanting to commit suicide. She is afraid to tell her parents for fear she won't be the perfect daughter that they expect of her. And she never does tell Chris, but instead wants him to help her plan her death. Of course this completely breaks Chris up, but rather then see Emily so miserable, he goes along with her-taking his father's gun out of the cabinet at home-loading it with 2 bullets. One for her, and then one for him. They go off to a secluded place where they've always gone, and Chris carries the gun, but still tries to fight Emily out of it. She grabs the gun out of his hand, and with her finger on the trigger, the gun goes off. Emily dies later at the hospital, and Chris though he gets hurt, lives.
This event happens on a Friday night, when both families usually eat out, which they were doing when this happened. But they had no idea until later when they each returned home and got a phone call in the middle of the night of the terrible tragedy had taken place.
The story from there is that Chris of course gets the blame. Later he is arrested and put in jail until the trial. He is out of his mind the whole time, trying to remember exactly what happened. Whether he gets off or not remains to be seen until later in the book. His attorney, Jordan, goes to fight for him.
The families naturally split. Melanie and Augusta Chris's mom are no longer friends but bitter enemies. Melanie won't accept her daughter's death, and acts just as though she is still alive. Her hatred for Chris as well as his mother now is very real. But interestingly enough, Melanie's husband Michael, and Augusta begin having an affair. But that is short-lived as the two families move away and separate from each other later in this book.
Excellent Book.......2006-08-27
This is an excellent story, but it does get a little long. I got the audio cd because I was going on a long drive, but I would have preferred it in print because it takes longer to listen than to read.
NOTE: SPOILER AHEAD! MY FAVE BOOK!.......2006-08-05
OMG.
this is my favourite book at the moment.
i chanced it at my neighbourhood library after i saw jodi picoult's works being featured in the straits times,the local press here.
i lurve the pact to bits ends.
this is really indeed such a love story.
two teenagers who grew up together,practically inseparable since they were children,and later fall in love.the story started off with a big bang (no pun intended).The girl dies,and the boy,Chris, who fainted from shock,is now being charged for homicide and alleged murder.
The story now procedes.Did Chris,a star athlete and schloar killed his girlfriend? And before you knew it,dark secrets starts to appear.The girl,Emily is found to be pregnant.Chris's mother and Emily's father began a passionate harmless affair,as they found their other halves being either nonchalent or grieving throughout the ordeal.More dark truths were suddenly revealed.
Its a good book.Seriously,there were all loads of twists and stuff that you couldn't expect.But i won't and i can't reveal it all.Except for another one,Emily was molested as a kid by a janitor and that she thought being in a relationship with her best friend and neighbour Chris was like committing incest.Did Chris shot Emily,or was it like what he said,theirs was a suicide pact? WAS EMILY suicidal all along?
Well well,coveting a neighbour's wife,teenage pregnancy,angst and sheer emotional torture,as well as an intense court trial,this is a really good book.I'm not surprised it a Hollywood adaptation of the book (heard there is one) will be a blockbuster.
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THE PACT [A LOVE STORY]
Manufacturer: Quill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GPZLOY |
Average customer rating:
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The Pact LP: A Love Story
Jodi Picoult
Manufacturer: HarperLuxe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Keeping Faith LP: A Novel
ASIN: 0061348198
Release Date: 2007-05-01 |
Book Description
From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00
A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
Average customer rating:
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Pact: A Love Story
Jodi Picoult
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1417727519 |
Customer Reviews:
The Pact A Love Story.......2007-09-09
All I can say is that this book is easily one of the best that I have ever read its got everything love,mystery,hate,truth,blame and it definatly has its share of twists and turns so buy it read it and keep reading it because this book will become part of your soul and stay with you forever Jodi Picoult has a gift when it comes to looking into the souls of her charectors so read get lost in the world of Chris and Emily and let this book become a part of you
Average customer rating:
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PACT: A LOVE STORY
JODI PICOULT
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O5VW7G |
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