Rating: 
Summary: Psychological suspense, family mystery on deserted isle
Review: "What does it mean to lose one's mind? Where does it go? What is sane when the world is mad by contrast?" So reads a 1918 entry in the diary of Rae Newborn's Great-Uncle Desmond, the first builder of the "Folly" or great house on a lonely 150 acre island in the San Juan chain in the Pacific Northwest. Rae, an internationally known expert in wordworking, plans to recreate Uncle Desmond's house using only a picture taken 70 years ago. Subject to depression her whole life, and recovering from a complete breakdown after a drunken driver killed her husband and 9 year old daughter, Rae comes to Folly Island after a year in a mental institution. Rae's journey to Folly has come to mirror Desmond's--an effort to rebuild his house in an attempt to rebuild her life. Desmond, considered a misfit after physical and psychological injuries sustained in World War I, escapes from the Newborn's oppressive Boston household to the freedom of the beautiful Sanctuary Islan, which was renamed Folly Island after Desmond's building attempt. Desmond's history comes out during Rae's stay on the island and she is particularly troubled with what seems to be a family history of madness. She struggles to overcome her own panic and fears on the island, all the while feeling someone is watching her. Her lawyer gets a message to her that someone paid thugs to attack her two years ago--the final event that triggered her breakdown. She also is told the her greedy son-in-law is trying to declare her mentally incompetent, so he can get control of her sizable fortune. Then things begin to disappear around her camp, disrupting the stability her almost finished house has given her. Her past and present family mystery deepens when she finds the 70 year old skeleton of Desmond in a cave near the house. Who killed Desmond and why? Who is still stalking her? Are they trying to trigger another breakdown or suicide attempt? Despite her isolation, Rae makes friends with a number of locals: a handsome sheriff, an infuriatingly perky but well meaning ranger and a shady but reliable boatman is her lifeline to the outside world. A beacon in an otherwise stormy life is Rae's granddaughter Petra, the only family member she feels close to. During Petra's visit to the island, Rae must call upon her inner strength and resources to protect them from an outside foe focused on revenge. While a departure from Laurie R. King's Mary Russell or Kate Martinelli series, Folly is a chilling novel featuring an unforgettable heroine and her struggle over her internal and external demons. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Psychological suspense, family mystery on deserted isle
Review: "What does it mean to lose one's mind? Where does it go? What is sane when the world is mad by contrast?" So reads a 1918 entry in the diary of Rae Newborn's Great-Uncle Desmond, the first builder of the "Folly" or great house on a lonely 150 acre island in the San Juan chain in the Pacific Northwest. Rae, an internationally known expert in wordworking, plans to recreate Uncle Desmond's house using only a picture taken 70 years ago. Subject to depression her whole life, and recovering from a complete breakdown after a drunken driver killed her husband and 9 year old daughter, Rae comes to Folly Island after a year in a mental institution. Rae's journey to Folly has come to mirror Desmond's--an effort to rebuild his house in an attempt to rebuild her life. Desmond, considered a misfit after physical and psychological injuries sustained in World War I, escapes from the Newborn's oppressive Boston household to the freedom of the beautiful Sanctuary Islan, which was renamed Folly Island after Desmond's building attempt. Desmond's history comes out during Rae's stay on the island and she is particularly troubled with what seems to be a family history of madness. She struggles to overcome her own panic and fears on the island, all the while feeling someone is watching her. Her lawyer gets a message to her that someone paid thugs to attack her two years ago--the final event that triggered her breakdown. She also is told the her greedy son-in-law is trying to declare her mentally incompetent, so he can get control of her sizable fortune. Then things begin to disappear around her camp, disrupting the stability her almost finished house has given her. Her past and present family mystery deepens when she finds the 70 year old skeleton of Desmond in a cave near the house. Who killed Desmond and why? Who is still stalking her? Are they trying to trigger another breakdown or suicide attempt? Despite her isolation, Rae makes friends with a number of locals: a handsome sheriff, an infuriatingly perky but well meaning ranger and a shady but reliable boatman is her lifeline to the outside world. A beacon in an otherwise stormy life is Rae's granddaughter Petra, the only family member she feels close to. During Petra's visit to the island, Rae must call upon her inner strength and resources to protect them from an outside foe focused on revenge. While a departure from Laurie R. King's Mary Russell or Kate Martinelli series, Folly is a chilling novel featuring an unforgettable heroine and her struggle over her internal and external demons. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: A must read. As a fan of King's Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli series I almost went past her latest work. I'm very glad I didn't. It is a powerful glimpse into the fine line between sanity and mania, and into the world of depression that so many of our artists dwell in. Anyone who has had to stuggle with the demons of fear, both internal and external, will relate to King's depiction of Rae Newborn's state of being when she arrives at Folly. And will be equally exhaultant at her victory. The entwined historical and contempory mysteries of the Newborn family was almost secondary to the tale of catharsis they engender.
Rating:
Summary: Take Folly on your summer vacation
Review: An absorbing, well written novel for readers who enjoy Mary Higgins Clark. Rae Newborn is a strong central character with a history of depression. Like Anna Pidgeon in the Nevada Barr mysteries this woman chooses a life in the wilderness. The setting is the San Juan Islands near Vancouver where Rae, a prize winning wood worker decides to restore the island home of her Uncle that burned over seventy years earlier. There are several subplots that have to do with Rae's family, her isolated childhood, a mental illness that has estranged her grown daughter and a husband and child killed in an auto accident. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: Each time a new Laurie King novel comes out it amazes me how Ms. King continues to expand the perception of suspense. Ms. King really gets into the disturbed mind of Rae Neuborn, the prime character, and follows her through the terror to a rebirth of the mind. Her talent for intricacy is unrivaled. Don't start this book until you have the time to read it straight through. You won't be able to put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: More psychological than thriller, but worth investigating
Review: Folly opens with an excerpt from a dictionary, defining a folly as (among other things) 'an often extravagant picturesque building erected to suit a fanciful taste', which is a fair summation of the novel ' though unlike some follies, this one is fairly well put together. King does a wonderful job with the 'psychological' part of 'psychological thriller', capturing both Rae's inner strength and terrors extremely well. For a thriller, though, Folly is very unevenly paced. King seems to have fallen in love with her setting and the characters who live there, and things move rather slowly in the first 340 pages. This gives the reader plenty of time to think about what's likely to happen next; I wasn't even slightly surprised when Rae discovered a body or when she solves the murder. In the last 60 pages, however, King introduces more characters with very little warning, and drops you into an action scene almost as though it were an afterthought. It's a good ending, with some nice twists, but a little more tension would have helped it. Fortunately, King has a beautifully picturesque style of writing, and her characters are interesting enough ' and, for the most part, sympathetic enough ' to keep you reading even when not much is happening. The plot is nowhere near as complex or obscure as, say, a Minette Walters novel, but it's much easier to like King's characters; even her villains and lowlifes tend to have a redeeming feature or two. Folly may not be perfectly constructed, but King has chosen her raw materials ' words and characters ' very well, and the end result is extremely pleasing.
Rating: 
Summary: (1.5) Suffering from too much imagination
Review: FOLLY will eventually be a mass-market best seller, no doubt, in spite of the fact that the book cried out for a good editor. Read the other reviews for plot; I found it formulaic and clumsy. The heroine, Rae, an artist-woodworker, widowed and depressed, isolates herself on a remote island formerly owned by a mysterious dead relative. Not a huge mystery, but at least the hint of one. King's characters are so wooden and one-dimensional, they never come alive, stuck forever in their blocks. The plots twists in unlikely unresolved ways, leaving the reader with unanswered questions. Then there are endless pages devoted to varieties of wood that fail, however, to interest or enlighten. There is little personal investment by this writer, which says volumes beyond the much-burdened folly of FOLLY.
Rating:
Summary: One of King's best efforts!
Review: Having read and loved both the Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli series' by King, I expected a similar read with Folly, but I was surprised and pleased to see her go in an entirely different direction with this astonishing, heartbreaking and ultimately victorious work of fiction. While King's series work plots complex mysteries with strong characters, Folly is more a character study, with a 50-ish woman in the unlikely role of heroine. Rae Newborn has endured tragedies and loss that would destroy a weaker woman, and while she has faltered, she has not fallen. Instead she finds redemption in a house-building project that she tackles alone, on a desolate northwest Washington State island. King uses the metaphor of house construction to underline Rae's rebuilding of her shattered psyche, one layer at a time; she gives older women readers insight and hope as she slowly tears down the old, then begins constructing the new, developing Rae's muscles and physical stamina to parallel her slowly evolving mental and emotional health. I loved the character of Rae Newborn for her own life's "folly" of attempting the incredible task of building a house. I cried for her tragedies and losses and suicide attempts. I was angry at her family members (like I would be at my own) if they could not, or would not, see the person beneath the title of Mother or Daughter, Aunt or Niece, etc. I cheered at the characters who fought to befriend the frightened, desperate Rae when she tried so hard to stand in isolation rather than chance loss once more. Mostly I hated the last pages of this book, because they WERE the last pages and I would have to leave Rae Newborn, when I wanted to stay with her on that island, or wherever life took her, forever. She became my sister, my friend, my hero. While Folly contains mysterious pieces of a soon-to-be-solved puzzle and some edge of the seat suspense, it can't be pigeonholed as just another Mystery or Thriller. It is so much more! Don't let the words of those who believe themselves critics deny you this unforgettable story - if you truly love good fiction you will enjoy this novel while you read it, and for years to come as you recall its lessons, its hope and its beauty.
Rating:
Summary: Another masterpiece from Laurie King
Review: I agree with the other reviewers that this is a marvelous story! The characters are very true to life, the description of the area is very well done and it keeps you on the edge of your seat right to the very end. The only warning I would give is that you may lose sleep while you read it as it's very hard to put down.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ
Review: I enjoyed this book so much, and I was so sad when it ended. I found myself putting the book down, because I was coming to the end, and I wasn't ready to let go of the characters yet. I surrounded myself with the story as I was reading it, and I thought about the characters when I was away from it.
I am a big fan of Ms. King's Mary Russell novels, but this book is not like those at all, except for the enjoyment factor involved in reading it. I think all kinds of readers would enjoy this book, kind of a cross genre novel.
So..do yourself a favor, read this book.
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