4.5 stars
Plot
Plastic surgeon Ross Ransome likes everything to be just so - a habit that stems from his childhood, when his abusive father blamed him for his mother’s desertion. But when his long suffering wife grows weary of his pedantic ways and overpowering personality and begins to turn her back on both her husband and his profession as she faces a battle against Lendt’s disease, he realises he must do everything in his power to stop his life slipping out of his control - and he won’t let anyone get in his way…
Review
Wow. What can be said about this absolutely fantastic novel, with its fast pacing and heart stopping moments, where you find yourself with only slithers of nails left on your fingers?
James’ provides us with strong, believable characters in this gritty novel: the terrifying, deeply disturbed Ross, the loveable Oliver, the humble Faith… In fact, aside from a few irritating individuals (chiefly minion Spider, whose spectacular dying moments more than make up for his less than appealing nature), even the minors such as Maddy Williams, who dies before the story even begins, manage to capture you interest. Such is the intensity of the novel that you actually find yourself quietly praying the protagonist will pull through, whilst screeching “Don’t you dare!” at the baddies.
It can get a bit uncomfortable at times, but if you can stomach it, it’s a great read. There’s no denying James’ ability to create tension and keep us in suspense, and what makes it all the more poignant is that there are probably thousands of real life Rosses out there for every helpless, trapped Faith, and not every story has a happy ending.
The only thing which stops this being a five star book is the poorly executed ending which follows an unoriginal, predictable climax and a weak break out scene. And then there’s James’ tendency to overuse commas, some sentences would have sounded a lot better broken down into shorter ones, it’s just plain annoying, kinda reminiscent of a typical adolescent who, like, feels the need to, like, insert the word “like”, like, twenty three times into every, like, sentence, because it’s so totally awesome! You get the picture…
Plot
Plastic surgeon Ross Ransome likes everything to be just so - a habit that stems from his childhood, when his abusive father blamed him for his mother’s desertion. But when his long suffering wife grows weary of his pedantic ways and overpowering personality and begins to turn her back on both her husband and his profession as she faces a battle against Lendt’s disease, he realises he must do everything in his power to stop his life slipping out of his control - and he won’t let anyone get in his way…
Review
Wow. What can be said about this absolutely fantastic novel, with its fast pacing and heart stopping moments, where you find yourself with only slithers of nails left on your fingers?
James’ provides us with strong, believable characters in this gritty novel: the terrifying, deeply disturbed Ross, the loveable Oliver, the humble Faith… In fact, aside from a few irritating individuals (chiefly minion Spider, whose spectacular dying moments more than make up for his less than appealing nature), even the minors such as Maddy Williams, who dies before the story even begins, manage to capture you interest. Such is the intensity of the novel that you actually find yourself quietly praying the protagonist will pull through, whilst screeching “Don’t you dare!” at the baddies.
It can get a bit uncomfortable at times, but if you can stomach it, it’s a great read. There’s no denying James’ ability to create tension and keep us in suspense, and what makes it all the more poignant is that there are probably thousands of real life Rosses out there for every helpless, trapped Faith, and not every story has a happy ending.
The only thing which stops this being a five star book is the poorly executed ending which follows an unoriginal, predictable climax and a weak break out scene. And then there’s James’ tendency to overuse commas, some sentences would have sounded a lot better broken down into shorter ones, it’s just plain annoying, kinda reminiscent of a typical adolescent who, like, feels the need to, like, insert the word “like”, like, twenty three times into every, like, sentence, because it’s so totally awesome! You get the picture…
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