My Soul to Keep

Rating:
Summary: A Suspense Story That Seems Real
Review: Fashion photographer Nan Lucas inherits a farm in rural Tennessee from her grandmother. Nan decides to spend the summer at the farm with her eight-year-old son Stephen. A lazy holiday will provide a needed break from the fast pace of New York and the pain of her crumbling marriage. The only trouble is that the visit revives long dormant memories of a terrible drowning accident twenty years ago. Hawkes has written a suspense story that seems real and the characters are interesting.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining, but not her best
Review: I found this novel to be entertaining and creepy, but not as beautifully and subtly written as Julian's House and The Heart Of A Witch. Still, it's suspenseful and compelling, and a good, solid read.

Rating:
Summary: AN ALTERNATIVE TO SOMINEX
Review: Judith Hawkes' "My Soul to Keep" could have been a good ghost story, but she's made it so long and contrived that it just didn't work for this reader.
Hawkes has a way in setting atmospheric scenes, but she doesn't go anywhere with them. Heroine (?) Nan alternates between being a shrewish wife, a doting but inattentive mother, and a nymphomaniac with her stud cousin Sky. Enter typical "woodsy" people like doomed Lucy; the psychic Flutie; the redneck moonshiner Jerry; the kindly bookstore owner, Cooper, and then worse of all, Nan's estranged husband Gabe. Seems like something terrible happened to Nan and her playmate Tucker back in 1968, that she just can't remember. Twenty years later, she returns to the family home in Tennessee and finds that the ghost of little Tucker has intentions on her eight year old son, Stephen.
While the ghost story itself is intriguing, the payoff is a real disappointment. And what's even more frustrating--what happens to Nan and Stephen? Do they stay in Tennessee? Does she continue her relationship with hunky Sky? What does Gabe do? Why is what happened in 1968 such a washout?
Not recommended unless you need something besides a sleeping pill to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: AN ALTERNATIVE TO SOMINEX
Review: Judith Hawkes' "My Soul to Keep" could have been a good ghost story, but she's made it so long and contrived that it just didn't work for this reader.
Hawkes has a way in setting atmospheric scenes, but she doesn't go anywhere with them. Heroine (?) Nan alternates between being a shrewish wife, a doting but inattentive mother, and a nymphomaniac with her stud cousin Sky. Enter typical "woodsy" people like doomed Lucy; the psychic Flutie; the redneck moonshiner Jerry; the kindly bookstore owner, Cooper, and then worse of all, Nan's estranged husband Gabe. Seems like something terrible happened to Nan and her playmate Tucker back in 1968, that she just can't remember. Twenty years later, she returns to the family home in Tennessee and finds that the ghost of little Tucker has intentions on her eight year old son, Stephen.
While the ghost story itself is intriguing, the payoff is a real disappointment. And what's even more frustrating--what happens to Nan and Stephen? Do they stay in Tennessee? Does she continue her relationship with hunky Sky? What does Gabe do? Why is what happened in 1968 such a washout?
Not recommended unless you need something besides a sleeping pill to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Sleepless nights here
Review: my favorite of her wonderful books - the characters are sympathetic and the suspense is honestly creepy