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Mad River Road:
After spending a year in prison, Ralph Fisher has explicit plans for his first night of freedom: tonight, someone will be held accountable. He goes to murderous lengths to obtain the address of his former wife - the woman he blames for his fate and against whom he has sworn vengeance. Determined to bring her to his idea of justice, Ralph’s next step is to travel from Florida’s sandy beaches to Dayton, Ohio, where his ex-wife is struggling to make ends meet on Mad River Road.
Also in Florida, Jamie Kellogg wakes from an agonizing nightmare of her mother’s funeral, and assesses her life: a pretty but unaccomplished twenty-nine-year-old woman in a dead-end job, with an ex-husband in Atlanta, a married lover in the hospital, and a virtual stranger in her bed. But this stranger is everything the previous men in her life weren’t:tender, attentive, and adventurous. After convincing Jamie to quit her miserable job and ditch her judgmental, perfectionist sister, he proposes a romantic getaway. While Jamie wonders if this thrilling man might finally be her Prince Charming, they plan a road trip to visit his son, who lives with his mother on a street called Mad River Road…

Heartstopper:
Welcome to Torrance, Florida. Population: 4,160. As Sheriff John Weber would attest, the deadliest predators to date in his tiny hamlet were the alligators lurking in the nearby swamps. But that was before someone abducted and murdered a runaway teenage girl...and before the disappearance of popular and pretty Liana Martin. The pattern is chilling to Sandy Crosbie, the town’s new high school English teacher. With a marriage on the rocks, thanks to her husband’s online affairs, and a beautiful teenage daughter to protect, Sandy wishes she’d never come to the seemingly quiet town with shocking depths of scandal, sex, and brutality roiling beneath its surface. And as Sheriff Weber digs up more questions than answers in a dead-end investigation, one truth emerges: the prettiest ones are being targeted, the heartstoppers. And this killer intends to give them their due....
Alternating between the chilling journal entries of a cold-blooded murderer and the sizzling scandals of small-town life, Heartstopper is Joy Fielding’s most exciting novel of suspense yet. ... Read more

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Word count: 1665. ... Read more

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Like his contemporary Smollett, Henry Fielding came of an ancient family, and might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his origin to Inachus. The lineage of the house of Denbigh, as given in Burke, fully justifies the splendid but sufficiently quoted eulogy of Gibbon. From that first Jeffrey of Hapsburgh, who came to England. ... Read more

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Beautiful, happily married, and the owner of a successful interior design business, Casey Marshall couldnt be more content with her life, until a car slams into her at almost fifty miles an hour, breaking nearly every bone in her body and plunging her into a coma. Lying in her hospital bed, Casey realizes that although she is unable to see or communicate, she can hear everything. She quickly discovers that her friends arent necessarily the people she thought them to beand that her accident might not have been an accident at all. As she struggles to break free from her living death, she begins to wonder if what lies ahead could be even worse.It is Fieldings ability to get under the skin of her charactersand her readersthat has made her such a dependably bestselling author, says the Calgary Herald. Smart, suspenseful, and overwhelmingly addictive, Still Life is a novel her fans wont soon forget. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Close the Curtains on this Puppet Show!
Amanda Travis is another unappealing, unpleasant, unsympathetic character who can join the ranks of Fielding's other unappealing, unpleasant, unsympathetic protagonists. The New York Times book review calls Mandy Puppet "beautiful," when there is no evidence to support this subjective statement. Mandy's behavior made her anything but beautiful.A pie in the face for Mandy!

This story is set in 2004. Twice-divorced defense attorney Mandy Puppet Travis (another whinebag lawyer like Jess of "Tell Me No Secrets") has a practice in Florida. Her first husband, Ben, a 1950s wannabe bad boy calls her to defend her mother. Seems Mandy's mother shot a man outside of a hotel and nobody can figure out why. Since the lady isn't talking, Ben figures Mandy can slither back into her life and worm the reasons out of her. Mandy drags her feet at returning to her hometown of Toronto and she certainly wants nothing to do with her mama dearest. Naturally, Mandy and Ben relight one another's fires and admit that when they married, both were too young. Mandy's second marriage to Mr. Travis was the opposite extreme - she married a man much older than she who was genuinely a nice person. She used him and fortunately for him, they parted company.

Mandy acted a fool all throughout the book. She had a pathological aversion for nicknames of any kind and the word "puppet" sent her into orbit. Mandy had no compunction about picking up men and sleeping with them. She just used people and was a tiresome drone. It didn't matter to her if they were married or single. She picked someone up at a gym and later a seatmate on the plane. He went from seatmate to sackmate and Ben actually catches them together. One gets the impression that Mandy the Puppet staged that little scene for Benny-boy's benefit.

No, Mandy the Puppet just isn't a character you can like. She puts one in mind of Elvis' 1956 cover of "Hound Dog," where he says, "they said you was high class, but that was just a lie..." so true in Mandy Puppet's case. The supporting cast of characters are dull and tiresome. The "mysteries" as it turns out is simply a) why Mandy Puppet's mother killed that man; b) the man's identity and c) what connection did a woman with two pre-teen children staying at the hotel have with that man.

By the time you get to the end, you just don't care. You kind of wish they'd all just hop off the puppet stage and run behind the curtain. Talk about a Punch & Judy show! A good song to sum up this book is James & Bobby Purify's 1966 hit, "I'm Your Puppet." The ending, as duly noted by other reviewers was indeed unsatisfactory and yeah, even "creepy," just like Mandy Puppet.
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Everything Claire Raphael has she's earned. On her own. The hard way. She built her part-time business up from nothing and made it successful through her imagination, creativity, and hard work. She has two great children and Dennis, a husband she loves completely.

Customer Reviews (23)

not a "feel good" or "pick me up" but a decent read
As another reviewer has stated, this is a successful business woman's worst nightmare -- a husband who secretly plots to divorce you, to take your children and your business, and who execute all this while you are miles across the country with your own mother who is dying.Throw in a conflicted relationship with a younger sister and your single male boss to add to the stress level.

The story is told from the point of view of the business woman -- Claire Raphael.Delinsky does a superb job of making the reader understand (and at times drown in) the angst of that Claire feels as she suffers one defeat after another, and she sees less and less of her children.

The most unrealistic part of the book is that the conniving, scheming, soon-to-be ex-husband is actually a great father, and handles laundry, child care, and meals without a nanny.HA HA HA. True fiction.

The book is, at times, hard to bear -- the idea of a court making a preemptory ruling taking your own children from you without hearing your side -- all based on lies -- is hard to contemplate.

Overall, a pretty good read, but not a feel good book.

very intense storyline
If you want a relaxing read, DON'T choose this book. Although it has a compelling storyline, it made me so uptight that I could read only small sections at a time. A very caring and smart business woman is totally 'raked over the coals' by her indifferent (and jealous) husband who suddenly changes character in front of her very eyes. Or was she too focused on other things to notice subtle changes in his attitude? Heads up all wives---if your hubby mentions several different times that he wants a seperation---sit up and take notice!! Don't sweep it under the rug. You just might prevent the nightmare scenario that developed in this story. This is only the second book by Delinsky that I've had the opportunity to read. FAMILY TREE was much more enjoyable to me--I could hardly put it down.

a must read
this is a must read for all women. the divorce laws are so unfair. i learned so much.in the end, claire is a better person .grreat book.

A Woman's Place by Barbara Delinsky
A Woman's Place is a rather dark and disturbing story of spousal abuse and discrimination in our legal system.As always, Barbara Delinsky has created a gripping story with strong characters you either love or despise.

Another Challenging Book: The story of a divorce
I think Barbara Delinsky challenges readers to see the people of her novels as thoughtful humans ... instead of disposing of them through the usual stereotypes. This book deals with divorce involving a hostile spouse who stacks the deck against his wife, the owner of a highly successful chain of wicker furniture stores. In every book of Delinsky's that I've read, she has challenged me to look beneath the surface of the characters and the plot. Her character study method of writing then involves me in the process of seeing the outworking of the situation as something that usually falls between what each person wanted, and thus it was here. Then, the things that amazed me were the settlement the husband got and all the places that the heroine had sex in!!!! Loved it! ... Read more