Rating: 
Summary: A creepy, cautionary tale about power
Review: Card departs from his better known genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy to provide a supernatural suspense story about the use and abuse of power (He raises some interesting points about extreme wealth providing extreme power). Very little in this story is quite as it first seems, and the twists keep coming until the very end. Card's storytelling skill draw you into the settings and take you along for the ride. His attention to detail is also impressive. I lived near the Northern Virginia locations in this book during to period the story is set, and I found all of his descriptions to be absolutely accurate! If you have enjoyed other works by Card, then you probably will enjoy this one as well.
Rating:
Summary: fascinating!
Review: I have never read a book by this author before (at least, that I can recollect) and so didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly rewarded. The book starts out with ten year old Quentin Fears fighting for the life of his sister who the doctors say is brain-dead as a result of an accident. When he finally accepts the truth and allows the doctors and his parents to pull the plug so that others may be able to use some of her organs before it is too late for them to be of help to the recipients, he doesn't tell anyone of his conversation with his sister just prior to his decision. The impact of losing his sister turns him into a recluse of sorts who excells intellectually but has little interaction with the opposite sex as he is growing up because no one could match the image or qualifications of his dear lost sister. He ends up a very rich man at a relatively young age and about the time he finally realizes what he has been missing in not having a regular kind of relationship with a woman and decides to go looking for a mate, he just happens to run into the woman of his dreams, Madeleine. She is everything he has ever dreamed of in a woman, and surprise, she reminds him of deceased sister, Lizzy. They marry. They have been married for quite a while, and yet he hasn't met her family. When she finally agrees to take him to visit them, with warnings that they are a little different, he finds she wasn't kidding. The chauffeur delivers them to a three story house that was built in the eighteen hundreds. It is there that he begins to notice a change in Madeleine's personality. The family is indeed strange, and then Madeleine confronts her grandmother, and demands, that since she is now married that she is entitled to the inheritance she was promised, the contents in the treasure box. When Madeleine asks Quentin to open the box, he hesitates, because of her strange behavior. This makes her go into a fit of rage and run out of the house. When Quentin follows to console her, he finds she has disappeared. There are no footprints in the snow of hers where they should be and when he returns to the house, he finds, instead of the well kept and beautiful house he just left shortly before, a house with the furniture covered and layers of dust and no sign that anyone else had been there but himself. Madeleine has disappeared and he can't find a record of her existence anywhere. He has the mystery of her disappearance, and in finding out what is in the treasure box and why it was so important to her, to solve. I don't want to spoil the book for you by telling you too much, but rather urge you to read it yourself. When I first started the book I thought it was just a regular type mystery but as I got into it, it veered off in a whole new direction, keeping my imagination purring until the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Story From a Versitile Writer!
Review: I have read other great books by Card (Ender's Game, Pastwatch, The Homecoming Series) and each one seems to have been written by a different writer! Card has an amazing talent for changing his style for each novel. This book hooks you from the very first page and keeps you rooting for the hero throughout.
Quentin Fears (pronounced "fierce") loses Lizzy, his sister as a teenager. Lizzy was the only person that Quentin could relate to. He finds himself stumbling through a very successful, yet unfulfilling life and career because he measures every one against Lizzy and they just don't measure up.
One day when Quentin is about 34, he sees a woman ahead of him in a supermarket checkout who looks remarkably like Lizzy and has Lizzy's mannerisms. He tries to follow her out of the supermarket but loses her in the parking lot. He then drives around blindly thinking about her and somehow ends up in the parking lot for an apartment complex. He looks up and sees the Lizzy look-alike entering one of the apartments. He decides to investigate who lives there and finds that it is impossible because it is a vacant apartment.
The weird chance encounter spurs Quentin to change his life. He decides that he will go to some of the parties that he has avoided and try to see if he can meet a woman and have a relationship (Quentin is totally innocent in the ways of women and never had a girlfriend in his life). Quentin is bored by most of the women he meets at the parties, feeling they are too fake and after something.
He strikes up a conversation with the hostess at one of the parties, a matronly and very wise woman of "society." The hostess seems to have figured out the type of person Quentin is and tells him there is a woman like himself waiting to meet him outside by an oak tree. On a whim, Quentin decides to take a chance and meet her. The woman (Madeline) at first reminds him of Lizzy and then seems to display every single trait that Quentin could ever hope for in an "ideal" woman. Quentin is enraptured with her and immediately starts wanting to see her constantly. Some things are very mysterious about Madeline. She doesn't give any information about herself, claiming she moves about living with friends, doesn't have a phone number other than her cell and gives no information about her home life or any information regarding any family.
This seems not to bother Quentin and he rushes into a swift marriage with her. He thinks that little by little he will get her to give him information about herself. Though she is extremely passionate and shares the same ideals as Quentin she remains just as mysterious as ever. Little does Quentin know that when he does learn something about Madeline he may be sorry for what he wished for because Madeline is everything he doesn't want. For Madeline's purpose is to get Quentin to open a mysterious "treasure box" that does not contain what it implies!
Rating: 
Summary: One star, just for being a book.
Review: I really enjoyed the book. I haven't read many other OSC books but this was as good as any other of his books that i have read. The characters pulled me in the story and i could not put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: A preachy, made for a movie book
Review: I've read most of Mr. Card's books, but this was the first of his I've read in the horror genre. This is not a good book, and I would not recommend it to anyone. Many times throughout this book Mr. Card lets us know his political and moral leanings, and it's too bad, because it greatly distracts from his story telling abilities. He is a great writer and storyteller, and Ender's Game is one of my top 5 favorite books. It's not hard to see in his books that he has the ability to see how people truly act and what their motivations are. As a result, it's odd to read about his beliefs, because they don't seem possible with the kind of observation of which he seems capable. This mystery, and the fact that one even thinks about it, is one of the downfalls of this book.
As to the plot of this book, well, it's an ok read, but I felt the same feeling I had when I first read Jurassic Park when I was twelve - "Gee, this sounds like a movie". I couldn't help but think that Mr. Card wrote this book to be a screenplay and not a novel, that maybe he was looking to cash in on some of what "authors" like Crichton have going for their pocketbooks.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment for Card fans
Review: One of the major strengths of Card's writing lies in the development of his characters, their interactions with others, and the moral choices they face. Unfortunately, this strength is fatally absent in "Treasure Box".
The pace of the book is hurried, rushing the reader through without much pause for reflection and understanding. A large chunk of the novel is entirely devoted to the backstory of the main character, Quentin Fears. Everything we need to know about Quentin is revealed before the "real" story gets underway. As Quentin doesn't really grow and change, the reader loses interest in him and his problems. Ultimately we are left wondering why we should care about the protagonist at all.
There are some classic Card scenes as well as some snappy dialogue but those moments come few and far between. The book is billed as a "low-key horror novel" but the witches, ghosts, enthrallments, 'haunted' house, and succubus that populate this novel come off as sensationalistic and overdone.
The underlying message about the dangers of power and isolation comes across as the "moral of the story" rather than the true heart of the novel.
The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I admire Card for switching genres and trying something new but I hope the sequel to this novel never gets written.
For anyone looking for a stand-alone Card novel, I recommend "Enchantment", a novel full of funny and engaging characters entangled in a fantastical story that Card manages to pull together with a masterful touch.
Rating:
Summary: One of Card's best works
Review: Orson Scott Bard became my favorite author when I read Ender's Game. I began reading all of his other books, and while many were wonderful, only Treasure Box can compare to Ender's Game. Card's prose is wonderful. It has been called bland, but the reality is that we are so used to reading overdramatized, fake, trite writing that we cannot recongnize geniune writing when we see it. Card is the only author I have ever read who can seemingly make you cry without even trying, make you laugh without trying, make you fear without trying. His prose is subtle in a way to be ultimately effective. Too many people reviewing this book expected it to be a horror a la Stephen King, waiting for his type of thrills, and did not keep an open mind. Treasure Box is NOT a horror or a suspense. It is a psychological thriller of the best kind, and it is a shame that so many biased, narrow-minded readers are giving it a bad name. Maybe if we stop labelling books before we read them, we won't be as disappointed. After all, if you expected Brave New World or Lolita to be a horror book, you'd be disappointed, too.
Rating:
Summary: A turn into the unexpected for Card
Review: Quentin Fears retreated from life as a child when his beloved older sister died. Although he has turned his skill with computer programming over into millions of dollars, he has no personal connections, no life, until he meets a woman named Madeleine. They marry after a whirlwind romance and she brings him to meet her family in a dusty old mansion in upstate New York. And, like in so many great ghost stories, this is a mansion full of secrets. Card is better known for his talents at science fiction and fantasy than horror, but his gift for characterization shines through in this deftly-woven creepy little tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing compared to his more intellectual works
Review: Since I love Orson Scott Card's other work I probably am more critical of this than I would be from another writer. I found this book a mild disappointment, though it is still an engaging and fun read. If you like his Alvin series, Ender, and so forth, this reads a bit more like, well, Stephen King. The characters are believable but the supernatural elements pushed the plausibility meter a little, and this from someone who loves his fantasy and science fiction oriented work and never had any trouble with his explanations in these books. I can't say much more about that without giving away the one big plot twist, but I found what happened with the character Madeline a little too convenient and not set up very well -- like a bad mystery where once you find out 'whodunit', you do recall a few previous clues, but still just don't buy it. That may sound overly critical, but Card is one of my favorite writers so I hold him to a high standard. He can do (and does) much better. If you haven't read this one yet and are a fan of his other books, I would recommend one of his newer books, Enchantment, which is an amazing read.
Rating:
Summary: Could be better...but could be a LOT worse
Review: Sure, I was thrown for a loop by the abrupt twist in the story midway through. But Card's knack for thinking forward and arranging odd things that become clear later in the story shines through here, just as in his other novels. Not everything can be Ender's Game, but it can still be good, and Treasure Box certainly is. I consider Stephen King, personally, to be the best modern writer of characters, but Card is no slouch, and even his supernatural beings come across real enough to have me glancing about my shadowy room while reading this at night. You can feel what Quentin feels. This may be Card's most atmospheric work (I haven't read all his novels) and there are some genuinely spooky scenes. No, it will never stand as his greatest achievement alongside Speaker for the Dead and Enchantment, etc., but it's still Card, and it's still great, and this is NOT a waste of time.
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