Suspicion

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: A solid read; kept my interest. A bit cliched in bits, but overall the end result is good.

Rating:
Summary: CAPTIVATING!!
Review: A very well written, exciting read. It really keeps you guessing as to who (or what) is stalking the Emma Roth.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: Although I didn't like the main character, Emma, I was sucked into the story and kept turning pages to see if it was a ghost or a stalker. The mathematics I found very interesting (of course I would), the soccer scenes I did not. I thought the red herrings were good, but I'm afraid I must agree with previous reviewers that the characters are clichéd. But none of this dissuaded me from finishing and going back to read certain parts again.

Rating:
Summary: Blah Blah Blah
Review: Anyone judging this book by its cover is going to immediately think it a bit of Norah Roberts' fluff or a ghost story a la the unsurpassable 'The Uninvited'. Unfortunately, this book cannot be categorized as either romantic suspence adventure or campy haunted house horror. At the very most its story revolves around grim happenstance spotlighting a woman obsessed with dire possibilities which she worries to death. Woe to the reader who empathizes with the negative, and swallowed by it, finds herself/himself unable to reach the same intended life-affirming lesson/message at the end of the book along with our too savvy main character.

The story should engage, but somehow it does not. After all the moody grief, there is no intellectualized savoring of the taste of strawberries as the author infers in her last paragraph. There is nothing but sour repellent mood, which most readers, expecting at least a powerful ghost story will abandon after the first 100 pages.
Emma and her family move out to Long Island and inhabit a large secluded house perched atop a Northshore village flanked by the Long Island Sound. Her husband, Roger, is a smart WASP physicist. Emma is a Jewish writer with socialist tendencies she feels she is betraying by leaving her urban nest of ethnicity. But this is not her only problem---someone is targeting Emma in a dangerous game of malice that tampers her livelihood, her sanity and eventually her life. Because of events that occurred in the past, Roger does not always believe in the validity of Emma's spin on reality. Hence, Emma finds herself isolated at a time in her life where she needs the security of strong friends and family.
Sounds potentially interesting, doesn't it? Well, it loses something in the writing. Narrated in the third person present, the format retains a choppy feel where the author uses too many literary analogies which seem forced, a little too light in atmosphere for the otherwise gloomy ambiance conjured up by the prose. Yes, Emma is a writer, but even so, I felt the author's choice of Emma's career a betrayal of sorts, Rogan utilizes her own personal experience rather than research a more appropriate and far less solitary and depressing form of employment for a woman already stretched to the limit and far too alone.

In a nutshell, this book isn't any fun. The idea is well crafted without any holes, but Ms. Rogan and her editor need to understand that no one wants to read a book where a heightened sense of disillusion and helplessnes are packaged as a ghost story/romance.

Rating:
Summary: Blah Blah Blah
Review: Anyone judging this book by its cover is going to immediately think it a bit of Norah Roberts' fluff or a ghost story a la the unsurpassable 'The Uninvited'. Unfortunately, this book cannot be categorized as either romantic suspence adventure or campy haunted house horror. At the very most its story revolves around grim happenstance spotlighting a woman obsessed with dire possibilities which she worries to death. Woe to the reader who empathizes with the negative, and swallowed by it, finds herself/himself unable to reach the same intended life-affirming lesson/message at the end of the book along with our too savvy main character.

The story should engage, but somehow it does not. After all the moody grief, there is no intellectualized savoring of the taste of strawberries as the author infers in her last paragraph. There is nothing but sour repellent mood, which most readers, expecting at least a powerful ghost story will abandon after the first 100 pages.
Emma and her family move out to Long Island and inhabit a large secluded house perched atop a Northshore village flanked by the Long Island Sound. Her husband, Roger, is a smart WASP physicist. Emma is a Jewish writer with socialist tendencies she feels she is betraying by leaving her urban nest of ethnicity. But this is not her only problem---someone is targeting Emma in a dangerous game of malice that tampers her livelihood, her sanity and eventually her life. Because of events that occurred in the past, Roger does not always believe in the validity of Emma's spin on reality. Hence, Emma finds herself isolated at a time in her life where she needs the security of strong friends and family.
Sounds potentially interesting, doesn't it? Well, it loses something in the writing. Narrated in the third person present, the format retains a choppy feel where the author uses too many literary analogies which seem forced, a little too light in atmosphere for the otherwise gloomy ambiance conjured up by the prose. Yes, Emma is a writer, but even so, I felt the author's choice of Emma's career a betrayal of sorts, Rogan utilizes her own personal experience rather than research a more appropriate and far less solitary and depressing form of employment for a woman already stretched to the limit and far too alone.

In a nutshell, this book isn't any fun. The idea is well crafted without any holes, but Ms. Rogan and her editor need to understand that no one wants to read a book where a heightened sense of disillusion and helplessnes are packaged as a ghost story/romance.

Rating:
Summary: surprisingly good
Review: As a bookseller who reads mostly spy thrillers and murder mysteries, this novel was surprisingly interesting. The writing is intelligent without being stuffy, the characters are well-developed. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Cliched and predictable
Review: As a lover of old houses, ghost stories, and women protagonists, this book was perfect for me. The possibilites seemed endless and it was interesting to follow Emma's train of thought, the events that led her to believe things that may or may not have been happening. Her suspicions were not all valid, and even tho some things seemed illogical, that's the point. Was it all in her head, was some of it real? Paranoia makes for interesting, sometimes frustrating, occassionaly frightening reading. Wonderful build-up at some points. Rogan's prose is easy, fresh, and hard to put down. I agree with some of the other reviewers--this one will keep you up late into the night!

Rating:
Summary: Paranoia--good reading!
Review: As a lover of old houses, ghost stories, and women protagonists, this book was perfect for me. The possibilites seemed endless and it was interesting to follow Emma's train of thought, the events that led her to believe things that may or may not have been happening. Her suspicions were not all valid, and even tho some things seemed illogical, that's the point. Was it all in her head, was some of it real? Paranoia makes for interesting, sometimes frustrating, occassionaly frightening reading. Wonderful build-up at some points. Rogan's prose is easy, fresh, and hard to put down. I agree with some of the other reviewers--this one will keep you up late into the night!

Rating:
Summary: [e-mail] in Seattle
Review: As I plodded my way through this book I kept asking myself, "Why am I reading this?" I didn't like any of the generic, superficial, generally unlikeable characters, and I knew who the villain was after reading the first few pages of the book.

I love ghost stories. This was not even a good one--the ghost being thrown in just to add more fluff to the plot line. This is the perfect book to become the summer TV movie of the week--something you watch and wonder why, after the movie is over, you ever watched it.

Barbara Rogan has a good writing style and a feel for suspense. If only she would delve into real characters and dump the stereotypes, she might make readers like me feel more moved than to think, "Who Cares! "

Rating:
Summary: Only if you are desperate!
Review: Basically it passes time. You can definately put the book down because you won't care what happens to characters.. The one thing I don't think any of the other reviewers have complained about is the horrible paragraphs about technical mathematics. If it is not Soccor it's linear equations.. is this fiction or a text?