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Summary: An interesting piece of work
Review: This book was recommended to me by my English teacher, and I'm glad she recommended this book . I haven't ever read any work by Louis Duncan but this piece of work has interested me greatly. I really liked the way that Louis Duncan not only told an interesting story of a 17-year-old girl in a new town but the way she brought in the information of the Salem witch trials. I found the reincarnation stuff a little weird but everyone has their own beliefs on everything. I intend to read more of Louis Duncan's work...she is an intriguing author.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: I've been a fan of Lois Duncan for awhile. There hasn't been a book of hers I haven't liked. Gallows Hill was no exception. It was a wonderful book and strangly realistic. There was a logical string of events and a terrifying conclusion that I've come to expect from Lois Duncan.
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Summary: TO KIRKUS REVIEWS:
Review: We believe that you are severly mistaken about Lois Duncan's book "Gallows Hill." It is not at all sloppy or unsuccessful. We have read the book and reccommended it to lots of our kin. They have really enjoyed the possibility of living a past life. I must really hand it to Lois for she has truly out done herself.
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Summary: It has an interesting plot, but it's not Duncan's best.
Review: I finally got my hands on this book with nothing other than utter excitement. I had been waiting for months for Lois Duncan's new book to arrive at our local library, and when it got there I was in for a shock. I was psyched for a new masterpiece like I Know What You Did Last Summer or Daughters of Eve. Instead I got Gallows Hill. The premise is exciting: a girl who really can tell the future by looking in her crystal ball, but is overshadowed by memories of a past life where she participated in the Salem witch trials. What a great plot! I thought. And it would of been. But the way the story was told just didn't hold up to my standards, which I suppose are just too high. Duncan added a few tediously sinister details and far-fetched events, that instead of contributing to making the story more freaky made it less so. But still, it wasn't a TOTALLY bad read. I might say that maybe the audience to appreciate this might be a little younger and\or less mature than those of us who loved Killing Mr. Griffin.
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Summary: The Best Book Ever!!!!
Review: This book keeps you on your toes and makes it seem you actually are there with Sarah, Ted, Rosemary, and the other caractors. My friend read this book and I just couldn't stand not reading it myself!!!! I recomend this book to everyone. The way Duncan discribes the sences is incredalbe. The ending is just to good!!!! This book is a definete keeper on my list!!!
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Summary: WAY COOL!!!
Review: This book captured my attention from the first page.I was blown away
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Summary: New Duncan Book is creepy and phenominal
Review: This new book by Lois Duncan is creepy. She has done what she has always done in her books. This incarnation is a step up. This a book that involves parapsychological feelings. The use of reincarnation is scary in a way that warps the mind. A book definately worth reading
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Summary: off to the gallows for that?
Review: This was really a good book. Lois Duncan used a lot of detail in this book. The plot was simple, and believable. A girl from sunny California who gets stuck in nowhere-ville because of a sudden lapse of judgement from her mother. What really gets to me is how narrow minded the people in book are. In fact, they pissed me off so much with their absurd narrow ideas that I felt like chucking the book across my room, but I couldn't because I was so caught up in the story. Seriously, you're labeled as a "witch" and discriminated on just because you played the role of a gypsy? Who in their right mind would burn down a store just because they sell a different kind of music and different religious ideas? This book seriously made me wonder if people are like that these days
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Summary: off to the gallows for that?
Review: Welcome to Pine Crest, where Sarah Zoltanne has been dragged from sunny California by her mom�s love for Ted Thompson, a local school teacher. But Sarah�s image of the Christian town of Pine Crest soon changes after playing a fortune-telling gypsy at the school�s Halloween carnival. However, with help from her new friend Charlie she starts to find out that everything that�s happening is for a reason, a very old reason.
What I liked about the book was the connection it had with the Salem Witch Trials. And once I realize just how close that connection was I didn�t want to put down the book. However, it also led to why I disliked the book. The citizens of Pine Crest are narrow-minded to new ideas. They even burnt down a bookstore because it sold such books on reincarnation.
In the end, I recommend this book to any Duncan fan or anyone who has read The Crucible. I especially feel it�s important to have read The Crucible so you know how the two books tie together, but at the same time you won�t be lost if you�ve never read it.
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Summary: Is It That Deadly?
Review: Gallows Hill is the most recent of Lois Duncan's young adult suspense novels, published just when I was deciding that she was probably never going to write another one. It is one of my favorites, though I don't know if that's because I read it after reading her other books. It is the story of Sarah Zoltanne, a 17-year-old high school senior who moves to the tiny town of Pine Crest, Missouri, with her mother, who has fallen in love with Ted Thompson, a local teacher with two kids of his own. Sarah is immediately faced with the problems of starting school in a small close-knit community in her senior year, as well as dealing with two stepsiblings and being an outsider, not to mention the terrible nightmares and visions the place gives her.Her only friend is Charlie Gorman, an overweight boy who is also an outsider in his own town. Researching the story of the Salem Witch Trials brings up terrible visions for Sarah, and the students at school terrorize her, believing that she is a witch. Eventually she realizes that she is remembering memories from a past life as nine-year-old Betty Parris, who triggered the Salem Witch Hunt 300 years earlier. Many of the students in the town, including Charlie, have been reincarnated from that lifetime, and have come together to repeat the incident as a way of teaching the lessons that people didn't quite get the first time around. Duncan put an incredible amount of research into this book, and she does a fantastic job of weaving a fast-paced modern story with history. She even inspired me to read some other historical fiction on Salem, which is usually not something I read. Readers will share Sarah's discomfort in her brand-new stepfamily, especially with her stepsister, 16-year-old Kyra. They will also itch to throttle Eric, the smooth-talking, two-timing golden boy who convinces Sarah to tell fortunes at the school carnival. The hardest part about Gallows Hill is knowing that Sarah is telling the truth when no one believes her. Everyone, including the principal at her school and her own mother, think she is exaggerating when she tells them about the crow left in her locker and people spying on the house. Sarah goes through this ordeal with a minimum of support - just Charlie. It can be near impossible to believe in yourself when no one else does. The flashbacks, too, are done very well. The modern-day teenagers who have been reincarnated all play strong roles in Sarah's life, just as they did in little Betty Parris' in Salem. The final scene, when Kyra and Eric kidnap Sarah and threaten to hang her because she is a witch, is powerful and frightening. Readers will feel like they are watching the flickering fire and hearing the sound of New Age music as the students put a noose around Sarah's neck. Duncan also pulls together some utterly beautiful writing - "It's Governor Phips, Sarah thought, hovering between lifetimes, before she realized that it was Ted Thompson who was removing the noose from her neck and lowering her into the upraised arms of her mother." Like all of Lois Duncan's other young adult novels, this one is highly recommended.
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