Killing Me Softly

Rating:
Summary: Excellent psychological thriller
Review: Anyone who knows Alice Loudon envies the young woman's near perfect life. Her boyfriend is handsome, nice, and treats Alice with respect. Her job as a research manager at a London-based pharmaceutical company pays well and is challenging.

However, her idyllic, seemingly established life abruptly changes due to a chance encounter while crossing a street. The eyes of Alice and mountaineer Adam Tallis connect. That evening Adam waits for Alice to leave work. He invites her to accompany him, which she does. They share the best sex of Alice's life. Over the next two months their relationship intensifies until they marry. Alice begins to neglect her work and friends. However, she begins to realize that the paragon she married has dangerous flaws. She learns former girl friends have died and now she is the target of his newest obsession.

KILLING ME SOFTLY is one of the best psychological thrillers of the year. The story line centers on an intelligent female enslaving herself to a dominant male even as she begins to question why. Adam is an intriguing but frightening character. However, this novel belongs to Alice, whose brilliant metamorphosis demonstrates the talent of Nicci French. After reading Ms. French's first time ever in America novel, sub-genre fans will obsessively clamor for the publisher to deliver her other two tales (only released in England).

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Thrill
Review: I am used to reading casual romances - I have read suspense and mysteries, but never a thriller such as this. I enjoyed the book very much and I only hesitate in giving it 5 stars in that I don't have too many thrillers to compare it to - otherwise, however, it is excellent. Alice, I feel, is amazing and real. Her choices and what she does - they are logical; insensible, immoral, yes, but they make sense, as does her endurance of Adam in his violence. And Adam - to the end of the book, I can see why she loved this man. And it's amazing that the book allowed that understanding. I am sure, if one is up to the deeper connotations of violence (which have nothing to do with guns, knives, or gangs), anyone will enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Posessing Novel of Obsession
Review: I got this book for Christmas, and let me tell you, it was different from any other book I've ever read. I read a section of it in a past issue of Cosmopolitan magazine; that's how I heard about it. The article in the magazine left me wondering and wanting to read more. So, I bought it. It is very well written, but quite disturbing. The main female character (sorry, I don't remember the characters' names!) has an affair with a man she has a chance meeting with. They pass on the street one day, and without hardly any words, they go to his apartment for an afternoon of mind-altering, life-changing sex. The man gets so deep into her mind and thoughts; just the thought of him is with her every waking moment of the day. Things take a bad turn, however...--I'm not going to give it away, though! You have to read it to find out! It became difficult to tell who was obsessed with whom toward the end: Adam (the mysterious man she met on the street-I remembered his name!) must have her by his side every waking moment. But, she is also constantly thinking of him. (The third side of the obsession question is the reader. Is it called a novel of obsession because the reader gets so into the story that he or she can not force themselves to put the book down? Hmmmm...) There are some very disturbing parts in this book--for example, some descriptions of domestic violence--that I did not find enjoyable, to be honest. Other than those few choice parts, this was a very good book. I could hardly put it down, once I picked it up! Is this a tale of true love, lust, or just a passionate affair with a total stranger? You'll have to be the judge of that. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A fine line between desire and abuse
Review: I wanted to read this book because I knew that the author is actually two people - the British journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. At first I was sceptical. How can two people write a novel that hangs together, I thought. Well, they succeed and only a couple of chapters in I had completely given up trying to guess who wrote what (an impossibility) and was entirely engrossed in the plot. There is just the right mixture of foreboding and surprise to keep readers turning the pages and burning the midnight oil. I stayed up till one in the morning to finish this, and the last half hour had my heart beating at twice its normal rate. Perhaps if you read a lot of thrillers the effect wears off a bit, but whether or not you read a lot of thrillers you should certainly read this one. A novel dealing with sexual violence could easily become either colluding or 'preachy', but Killing Me Softly avoids both these traps. The only qualm I have is about Adam's visit to Tara and Adele's parents. Why exactly?

Rating:
Summary: Sure to grab you by the throat
Review: Thrillers are not my normal read, but I'd heard intriguing things about the husband-and-wife team that writes as "Nicci French" and I had a longish flight to catch, etc etc.

Glad I took the plunge. Middle class, 30-ish, bright and pretty, Alice locks eyes with a devilishly handsome stranger on a wintry London street and within a few pages has abandoned her safe existence in the grip of a sexual obsession. Doesn't hurt that he's a legitimate mountaineering hero, or that his bedroom technique takes her to places where she's never been.

We see the pitfalls long before Alice seems able to, but the story still comes at us dense with dread. This is not so much a horror-thriller, as a story of adult life - complete with Nick Hornby-like musings on the contradictions of modern love - that spirals down into a fairly credible darkness. Think of it as "Bridget Jones' Dairy of Death."

I still have a question about the climbing rope, but what the hell... This book had me reaching for it in the spare moments when the lights were red. And you don't get THAT everyday!

Rating:
Summary: - kill me -
Review: Well..It wasn't as thrilling as i expected, but it was quite good. I was kinda bored in the middle...and then when I got near the end...I couldn't put it down. It's pretty good, worth reading.