Rating: 
Summary: Mystery With a Supernatural Twist
Review: This was an enjoyable, although fairly fluffy, mystery with a supernatural twist.
Renata and Regina were identical twins, so identical that not even their parents could tell them apart. Often communicating with each other using "twin speak", they kept this form of communication active their entire lives.
On one fateful night, one of the twins is murdered. There was no conclusive way to tell exactly which twin was killed. Their footprints taken at birth were lost. Found at dawn, one twin was brutally murdered, and the other twin, in shock, was speaking incoherently in twin speak.
Taken to a private institution, the twin, who the family has decided is Renata, has no memory of anything or anyone, until an old family friend, Mark, arrives for a visit. Renata knows him instantly. He takes her under his wing, and helps her find her way back to the land of the "normies."
After settling Renata in with her Aunt Mary in Seattle, Mark settles back into his life as a graduate student at the University of Washington. But a string of brutal slayings in the university area alarm Mark and his housemates, and raise Mark's suspicions of Renata. What finally happens is a fairly chilling ending to this often drawn out tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful!
Review: This book is truly terrible, like the rest of Eddings' recent works.I can't believe this worthless fool was one of my favorite authors at one point.
Rating:
Summary: Eddings Has Done It Again...
Review: Eddings and Fantasy are two words that fit so perfectly well together...up until now that is. With this novel the duo reach into the world of fiction & suspense and do a pretty fine job if I do say so myself. I'm not too familiar with the genre, but to me, the book was quite excellently done. The tale here involves two identical twins, Regina and Renata. Unfortunately one of them is murdered, but do to certain events, no one is exactly sure which one. Mark, the surrogate big brother of sorts, believes the survivor to be Renata. After the murder, Renata spends some time "away," and is eventually "returns" from her trip. Mark and his house-mates aid in her progression back into society. At this point in time, strange things begin to happen. A serial killer seems to have emerged in town and is striking in the surrounding areas of the city. No one has any idea as to who it is, until a clue that sheds a great deal of light onto things is found. Mark and company begin to suspect things, but can't really prove it. Speculation, the legal system and other fun moments come into play. In the end though, things turn out quite different than expected. The book is full of wit, charm and so much more. The Eddings have been masters at writing tales that grab you and allow you to explore various emotions. This book is no exception. The plot flows rather smoothly and is not too jumpy, and the language is easy to understand. I recommend this book to just about anybody. Anyone who has read any other book written by Eddings will enjoy this one, as would anybody who is up for a nice, easy and quick read. So overall, Eddings has taken a step in a new direction, and hopefully it won't be the last step they take, as they most certainly have a talent for what they do, and that is to entertain.
Rating:
Summary: It was good but unrealistic...
Review: Having been a fan of the Edding's since a teen, I was somewhat dissapointed with Regina's Song. While the story was good, there was a significant amount of undone research - the kind that provides the fine details that make a story, a suspense story in particular, that much more enjoyable. In particular, the character development (the hero and his crew, in particular) was a little lacking and there were a lot of loose ends that either needed to be flushed out a little more or left alone in the first place. While the story left a little to be desired, it was still a wonderful read and it was captivating. As a NW native, it is nice to read a story based in my own back yard.
Rating: 
Summary: Typically not my cup of tea, but this time... BOOYA!
Review: Just in this case, the thriller theme was rather enjoyable. If you enjoyed Eddings book series (pretty much any of them) this book would be a pretty good read for you. Eddings, while not one of the most complicated writers, is entertaining without resorting to lowballing the readers intelligence. Anyone who has read his books knows he doesn't go into explicet language very much, if at all. This can sometimes lead a reader to believe that "it's for kids". well, I'm 22. I personally don't need to read the expletitives [words] and the various other four letter words. Back to the story... sorta. Eddigns has always been able to make me feel a connection to the characters of his books, this was no exception. I had a myriad of different emotions running through me by the time I finished the book. Very few writers I have found have been able to do that to me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the Eddings books (The Redemption of Althalus is sort of an exection, it was a whole series of books comboined down to one, the story moved to fast to be able to really keep track of what waas going on, but I digress) While I haven't read many (by many, I mean any) thriller genre books before, I wouldn't doubt that this wouldn't stand up to the masters of that genre, but then again how well would those masters do if they wrote a fantasy series? In my eyes the Eddingsesssess wrote this book as almost a gift to his fans. It just has that feel to me. Did I mention I finished the book in a 25 hour period (I had work and sleep! sue me!) I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Pedestrian plot line, but the ambience is worth four stars.
Review: David and Leigh Eddings usually confine thier prose stylings to the fantasy realm. However, sprinkled into their copious works of wizards, dragons and knights are a few contemporary works. The previous two, the Losers and High Hunt, were wonderful tomes of angst and philosophy.
Enter Regina's Song. The plot is of Identical twins so closely connected that no person can tell them apart, including thier parents. They inhabit a world of thier own and let others in only sporadically. Horror strikes when one of the siblings is murdered and the other, who finds her slain twin, is mentally shattered.
The story is narrated by a close family friend who is a proxy big brother to the twins. When the uncorked twin slowly comes back from the abyss, the narrator is the one person she recognises,and thus becomes her life-line back to sanity.
After what I felt was a very insignificant, and under-developed recovery period, the surviving twin joins the narrator in Seattle to begin rebuilding her life. The narrator lives with a cast of very convenant characters, all, including the narrator, are very serious Master degree students who live in an educational Utopia where the house rules exclude drinking, partys and as the writers so blithely phrase it, "Hanky-Panky".
The boarding house, in a book filled with religious apparitions, serial killers and the like, maybe the largest leap the writers ask thier fans to take.
Shortly after the surviving twin relocates to Seattle, the town is rocked by a gruesome serial killer. The narrator, after much soul wrangling, begins to entertain some very unwelcome theories, and then sets about to try and disprove them.
I had a few problems with this novel. First and foremost, the dialoge is liberally flavored with words like "normies"( in reference to normal people) which began to grate on me the further I read. In fact nearly all the banter,formerly an Eddings strength, is contrived and very forced. In regards to the dialoge, I also found that the writers were trying to build a quasi-vernacular that interrupted the cadence of the story. The friendly bandying was so incumbered by these attempts at a slang-like vocab that the conversations felt stilted.
Finally, I had a problem with the fact that a large amount of the plot felt as if the writers had plagered themselves. The idea of identical twins who create their own language, and who can feel the others pain was lifted straight from the plots in their Belgariad and Mallorean series of novels.
What is worse, to me, was the fact that the writers could have taken this theme and really fleshed it out, and yet they did not.
Despite the many qualms I had with this novel, I did enjoy it to some extent. The setting, Seattle and the Puget sound area, is perfect for a murder mystery. The Eddings did a wonderful job using the nuances of that misty area to aid the plot. In addition, they have wonderfully descriptive prose, which builds a very alluring world. And finally, despite my rantings against the boardinghouse being to fictitious, David and Leigh do a beautiful job of making it feel so homey and becoming that you wish your life played out in such an environ.
Overall, I was hoping for more, but I would recommended on what was there.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreakingly beautiful tale
Review: Regina and Renata Greenleaf are identical twins, born and raised in Everett, a small town thirty miles north of Seattle. They are so alike that even their own mother can't tell them apart and they share a private language that they only understand. They think of Mark Austin as their unofficial big brother whose job is to gets them out of scrapes. When tragedy strikes and Regina is murdered, Renata goes insane and has to be institutionalized. When she comes out of her psychosis, she no longer remembers her parents, but recognizes Mark. He becomes her catalyst that sets her on the road to recovery. When she is released from the institution, she joins Mark in Seattle where he attends the university. A second tragedy occurs and this time Mark is determined he will keep Ranata safe from harm. REGINA'S SONG is a novel that transcends genre classification, as the story line will appeal to readers of all genres. The characters are ordinary people who know the true meaning of love, friendship and fellowship. David and Leigh Eddings, well known for their sword and sorcery tales, break new ground with this heartbreakingly beautiful tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Terrible! Predictable! Inane!
Review: Having been a big fan of Eddings' work for many years now, and having read everything that he/they have ever written, I bought this book without so much as a hesitation. Imagine my disappointment then when, upon reading this, I was terrifically dissatisfied on almost all accounts. I am not certain if it is the genre, (being one of the few Eddings' non-fantasy novels) or the subject matter, but this book falls flat from cover to cover. Perhaps, it is because this novel is based in 'real world' context - allowing an actual frame of reference that is impossible within the fantasy genre - that the sub par writing becomes apparent. However, although it has been some years since I read High Hunt, and The Losers, I do not recall having experienced the same visceral reaction to the quality of the writing in those books. That, and the fact, that as big a fan as I am, I just cannot bring myself to consider that Eddings' overall writing style is second-rate. The storyline is predictable (other than one small surprise twist that appears more than halfway through the book on page 319) and trite. The story development and depth is overlooked time and time again in lieu of repetitive and one-dimensional writing. (The mention of fog again and again and again being a prime example.) The reinforcement of words through italics is so overused that I one point I actually began counting how often they were used on a two page spread, and at another point, I genuinely found myself shocked that the use for emphasis was truly applicable! The dialogue is cumbersome, exceptionally pedestrian, and annoyingly redundant. ('Normies' is painfully inane and the fact that every single character adopts this term is beyond exasperating. How about 'normal' or, perhaps even 'sane'?? Novel idea? Not in this one! And 'bad days'? Sounds like we're talking about hair and not the repercussions of a person's crumbling sanity. And, like the mention of fog, we read them again and again and again...didn't anyone on this team have access to a thesaurus??) I cannot help but think if someone (either the authors or even - gasp! - an editor) were to take the time to read this poorly-written dialogue aloud they would have immediately recognized that real people do not speak this way! The character development is shallow and uninteresting, and thus, most of the characters themselves are irritating and obvious. The characters' various professions/studies and relationships to both Mark and Renata are exceedingly convenient. Character motivation is dubious and illogical; most disturbing is the obvious oversight that neither Mark nor Sylvia make any effort whatsoever to contact Dr. Fallon immediately after Renata's hospitalization. (Note: SPOILER)
Additionally, after Renata's apprehended, Mark makes a comment about how Renata does not deserve to go to prison! Nor should she be labeled 'criminally insane'. Huh?! Did anyone pay attention to HOW these people were murdered besides me?? Sure they were suspicious characters who may or may not have 'deserved' it, but it was not a simple strangling, gun shot, or even stabbing that did them in. The method of assassination was vicious, disgusting and evil and was, in essence, so horrific that throughout the story everyone comments on the sheer brutality of it. And she didn't just slaughter the guy responsible, but to everyone's own admission, she practiced on the other victims first! And yet, Mark and the others sit around discussing her and her fate as if she's this fragile, misunderstood innocent who is nothing more than a victim of her own experiences. Sure, she's crazy, but she's bloodthirsty, manically crazy when the wolves 'sing'. (Ack!) Basically, there is no dimension, subtext, or compelling drama to encourage eager page turning. In fact, this read goes beyond substandard into chore-based; the only reason I even made an effort to finish the book was because of the author(s). At this point, I am unsure who is to blame more for the mediocrity of this book - the authors, or the editor(s) (who apparently did not show up for work on this project). Cutting, cutting and more cutting would have certainly been a good start to a better novel! I will continue to buy and read Eddings' novels, but will pause for a little more consideration next time if the story falls outside of the wonderfully developed fantasy world in which he/they have previously so successfully executed.
Rating:
Summary: wasted potential
Review: the idea behind this book is very interesting, however, Eddings has to bog it down with his "clever" dialogue. THere are characters who serve no function in the book than to allow themain character to showoff his witty banter. Which isn't as witty as it is annoying. All the characters use the same expressions and add "ie" to everything, like bugsies and normies etc. which doesnt reflect the dialouge of today in any way shape or form even tho it has a modern setting. Also, the living arrangments Mark finds himself in, just doesn't exsist. No busy college women would cook and clean a house for men, they would either hire someone to do it or expect everyone to clean up after themselves. This out of date sterotyping was extremely annoying and hard to believe. I doubt that this book would have been published had the famous Eddings' had not been the authors.
Rating: 
Summary: I might be overly generous here
Review: I'm giving this two stars because I did manage to finish the book and finish it quickly.
The Good: The idea was interesting. Two twins who switch "identies" so much that no one can really tell themselves apart, maybe not even themselves. One brutally murdered, the other deeply catatonic or something like that. She wakes up and it's as if she has two different personalities. The cute, two-dimensional one she shows to the world, and the one with hidden depths and who has a rather gruesome agenda. There was a lot more that could have been done with the idea, but what was done is enough for me to give two stars. You do sort of wonder about whether she is aware or completely divorced from that "hidden" side of herself. That was fairly well done too.
I disagree with a lot of people's assessment on the twin about how she was two-dimensional. As I said, I think that she was supposed to appear that way because she was "nutso."
Which brings me to...
The Bad: I won't over repeat the irritating quality of the dialogue. It sort of works, although gets old, in his fantasy series (although, I haven't read any of his newer ones). It does not work, as has been repeated in many reviews, in a contemporary novel. The dialogue and the language--cutsieness aside--belong in a different time era, or a different dimension. I don't know anyone in their twenties who says "you bet your sweet bippy" although there was an attempt to explain some of the main character's ideas and speech manner by saying he was raised to be "old-fashioned. "Be nice" is in ALL his novels. Enough said
Additionally, there were simply too many plot devices that made the story too pat. To name a few, it was awfully convenient to have a psych student, the brother of a police officer, and a law student with connections to lawyers all with their useful roles.
Finally
The Ugly: I'm a little picky about this, but there needed to be a bit more research done on some basic legal and psychological premises in this book--beginning with something called doctor/patient confidentiality. You've got this psychiatrist chatting it up with everyone in seattle regarding personal and medical information of his patient. He discussed her case with a friend of the family, the friend's roommate who was a psych student, and also, I believe the aunt she stayed with. Renata would have had to release that information unless she was declared incompetent, but even then she'd have had some input.
The legal aspect is totally ridiculous. It's pretty hard to close, not just a courtroom, but a whole floor?! What about other cases, hearings and judges? Renata was not a minor and it is rather difficult to completely and totally close a court case (you can maybe ban cameras, or something) but sealing a case or not allowing anyone from the public would not have happened, at least not without one mega legal battle, for this type of case--there were a ton of constitutional law issues totally ignored. Yes, I am being technical about the law stuff, but if the author is going to bring it up, try and bring a little accuracy to the story, or leave it out please. I probably would not have been so irritated with this, had I not already been irritated by the lack of research in doctor/paitent confidentiality.
*spoiler*
And finally, who gets sentenced to a convent? I don't see that happening nor do I see the police, and justice system letting a bunch of grad students running the show to get her there.
*spoiler over*
I won't go into too much into depth about the chauvinism in this story. The unrealistic part of the womenfolk cooking and cleaning for the menfolk when all are in school set my teeth on edge. So did the fact, that while none of them were sexually active with nor interested in each other, those womenfolk got jealous when they thought that one of their own had a girlfriend because apparently, women are possessive of their male friends and don't want any outside female "competition." I like to think that we women have a little more depth. I can't stand massive generalizations of that type.
But i've never been a fan of how women are portrayed in eddings' books. It sort of goes with the territory. It's just more glaring in a "contemporary" book.
My ultimate conclusion: this book would have been tons better if it had taken place in the 1950's or so. I like to try to begin and end with positive stuff. So, I'll end it by saying while I could have done without the totally bizarre appearance of a solidified ghost at the end, I thought Renata's charecter interesting--I think that she was meant to be the true mystery of the book and she was.
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