Rating: 
Summary: Darkness Peering
Review: I read this book cover to cover on one plane trip from NYC to Lake Tahoe. The charecters were rich, the detail and environments were terrific. I have since passed the book onto 2 friends and my wife who say they are enjoying as much as i did.
Rating: 
Summary: AWESOME! SMART! UNPREDICTABLE!
Review: My friend told me I MUST read this book. Now I MUST thank my friend. And the author, for writing it. This was totally freaky cool and out there. A little dark maybe for some people, but way awesome. And great writing. It's about time someone bucked the formula and wrote from the heart. This scared me.
Rating:
Summary: A great read. Not your run-of-the-mill mystery.
Review: This was something different than I expected-- a literary mystery/thriller. A few horror scenarios (I won't give them away) are incredibly scary, gripping and believable. The heroine is quite conflicted on several levels-- haunted, actually. This book left me disturbed yet strangely satisfied. It's much more thought-provoking than your average mystery. I'm definitely looking forward to her next one.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious and preposterous
Review: How could anyone publish this, let alone recommend it? The prose is cliched and cluttered. Elmore Leonard once said he didn't use metaphors because he couldn't write them well. Take note, Alice.The characters are TV retreads. Police procedures ring false. The heroine's an imbecile. The action scenes are laughable if not downright impossible. The climax is a hoot. Most pathetic of all, the author strains for profundity that is beyond her depth. We are evidently supposed to believe that the heroine's final act is in some way honorable. By this act (I'll try to be careful here) she makes herself at the very least complicit in the murder of a friendless disabled child. This is not moral complexity; it is moral illiteracy.
Rating:
Summary: fine and complex writing
Review: Not the least of Blanchard's accomplishments in this thriller is the fine and complex writing of the story itself. Darkness does indeed "peer" in various fashions over the town of Flowering Dogwood, as scary a place as Poe might have invented. The foggy vistas, the school for the blind, the early, New England evenings, as well as the metaphorical darkness of family violence and the tinge of incest; the charged and complicated relationships of lovers, spouses, parents and children--all are haunted by shadows of secrecy and dread. Blanchard brings to the genre a sure-footed sense of literary resonance. This is both a true page-turner and a work with the kind of staying power we more often associate with mainstream fiction. The quirks and kinks and gothic twists of Darkness Peering, its evocation of primitive chills beyond the mere bonetingling murder, will remain with the reader long after the covers are closed.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: The reviews, as good as they've been, have all danced around how stunning this first novel really is. Bravo, Alice Blanchard--you've written a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Suspense Novel with Surprise Ending
Review: Overall I found the novel to be very interesting. Setting it among people with disabilities was very original - though I would to like to complain about how Blanchard decided to resolve the issue of Melissa's death. I'm afraid it makes it seem people with Down Syndrome don't deserve justice.
Rating:
Summary: CHILDISH. Hokey NOT RECOMMENDED at all.
Review: The reviews below caused me to read this book. I don't know what every body else was reading, but in my opinion this book failed miserably! Very poor writing. The characters were disgracefully stereotypical, wooden to the point of petrified. Narratives were kindergarten faire. Simpleton. There was no page- turning suspense and the story wasn't interesting in the least. "gritty police procedural" ? What? Where?
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written - A masterpiece of suspense
Review: Alice Blanchard is an enormously gifted writer. She has written an impressive novel with highly charged scenes, compelling characters, and page-turning suspense. Brava!
Rating:
Summary: No other review prepared me for the excitement of this book.
Review: I had already read several reviews of this book but none of them prepared me for the excitement of this book. Not only is it a great mystery but it includes many other issues. I am definitely looking forward to Ms. Blanchard's next book. I highly recommend this book.
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