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Flashback

Flashback

List Price: $25.00
Your Price: $16.50
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: All about Eve.
Review: "Flashback," by Jenny Siler, starts out with an electrifying scene in a nunnery. The heroine is Eve, a woman whom a group of Benedictine nuns in France take in after she is shot in the head and left in a ditch to die. Eve survives, but her memory is gone. She has no idea who she is or why someone tried to kill her. Occasionally, Eve has nightmares hinting at a tumultuous and violent past that is quite different from her placid existence in the convent. Suddenly, Eve is forced to flee, and since her sole clue is a ferry ticket from Morocco that she finds among her possessions, she decides to travel to North Africa in an attempt to rediscover who she was in her former life.

Eve's journey takes her to Tangier, Marrakech, and eventually, to Bratislava. As she tries to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her history, she must also avoid those who want her dead. Eve meets a mysterious and handsome man named Brian who may have some of the answers Eve seeks, but will Brian prove to be friend or foe?

Jenny Siler sets up her plot well, and for the first half of the book, I turned the pages quickly to find out what would happen next to this attractive and courageous heroine. Siler handles the exotic locales nicely, and her lively descriptions of Tangier and Marrakech add to the book's atmosphere. I also liked the novel's terse, no-nonsense dialogue.

Unfortunately, the denouement of the book does not have the same energy as the setup, and at the end, the story begins to meander. As Eve travels from place to place, she meets a variety of individuals, each of whom has a piece of the puzzle. Although I like Eve, the other characters in the novel lack depth, and the solution to the mystery is melodramatic and a bit muddy. However, "Flashback" is, at least for the first half, a gripping spy thriller. Once hooked, you will want to hang on to learn the truth about Eve.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: All about Eve.
Review: "Flashback," by Jenny Siler, starts out with an electrifying scene in a nunnery. The heroine is Eve, a woman whom a group of Benedictine nuns in France take in after she is shot in the head and left in a ditch to die. Eve survives, but her memory is gone. She has no idea who she is or why someone tried to kill her. Occasionally, Eve has nightmares hinting at a tumultuous and violent past that is quite different from her placid existence in the convent. Suddenly, Eve is forced to flee, and since her sole clue is a ferry ticket from Morocco that she finds among her possessions, she decides to travel to North Africa in an attempt to rediscover who she was in her former life.

Eve's journey takes her to Tangier, Marrakech, and eventually, to Bratislava. As she tries to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her history, she must also avoid those who want her dead. Eve meets a mysterious and handsome man named Brian who may have some of the answers Eve seeks, but will Brian prove to be friend or foe?

Jenny Siler sets up her plot well, and for the first half of the book, I turned the pages quickly to find out what would happen next to this attractive and courageous heroine. Siler handles the exotic locales nicely, and her lively descriptions of Tangier and Marrakech add to the book's atmosphere. I also liked the novel's terse, no-nonsense dialogue.

Unfortunately, the denouement of the book does not have the same energy as the setup, and at the end, the story begins to meander. As Eve travels from place to place, she meets a variety of individuals, each of whom has a piece of the puzzle. Although I like Eve, the other characters in the novel lack depth, and the solution to the mystery is melodramatic and a bit muddy. However, "Flashback" is, at least for the first half, a gripping spy thriller. Once hooked, you will want to hang on to learn the truth about Eve.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: All about Eve.
Review: "Flashback," by Jenny Siler, starts out with an electrifying scene in a nunnery. The heroine is Eve, a woman whom a group of Benedictine nuns in France take in after she is shot in the head and left in a ditch to die. Eve survives, but her memory is gone. She has no idea who she is or why someone tried to kill her. Occasionally, Eve has nightmares hinting at a tumultuous and violent past that is quite different from her placid existence in the convent. Suddenly, Eve is forced to flee, and since her sole clue is a ferry ticket from Morocco that she finds among her possessions, she decides to travel to North Africa in an attempt to rediscover who she was in her former life.

Eve's journey takes her to Tangier, Marrakech, and eventually, to Bratislava. As she tries to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her history, she must also avoid those who want her dead. Eve meets a mysterious and handsome man named Brian who may have some of the answers Eve seeks, but will Brian prove to be friend or foe?

Jenny Siler sets up her plot well, and for the first half of the book, I turned the pages quickly to find out what would happen next to this attractive and courageous heroine. Siler handles the exotic locales nicely, and her lively descriptions of Tangier and Marrakech add to the book's atmosphere. I also liked the novel's terse, no-nonsense dialogue.

Unfortunately, the denouement of the book does not have the same energy as the setup, and at the end, the story begins to meander. As Eve travels from place to place, she meets a variety of individuals, each of whom has a piece of the puzzle. Although I like Eve, the other characters in the novel lack depth, and the solution to the mystery is melodramatic and a bit muddy. However, "Flashback" is, at least for the first half, a gripping spy thriller. Once hooked, you will want to hang on to learn the truth about Eve.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gripping stuff!
Review: Another beautifully written, absorbing thriller from Siler. Her evocative language and sense of suspense and drama kept me going from beginning to end. I loved this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Visual, engaging and emotional
Review: Aptly titled, considering the fact that I've had flashbacks from the book ever since I read it. The book so engaged me, and the writing evoked such a clear visual of the story, that I could swear that I saw a movie of the story rather than read a book. I too think that Jenny Siler has taken a giant leap forward in technique with this one...I only hope it gets the kind of attention that it deserves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Flash Back lyrical and heart stopping
Review: Eve is a smart character,heroic,and with flaws everything I like in a good thriller, heart stopping and a voice that got my attention. EASY MONEY, ICED, SHOT were a great read but the plot in this one got me all the way to the end, like all of Jenny Siler books the best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Flash Back lyrical and heart stopping
Review: Eve is a smart character,heroic,and with flaws everything I like in a good thriller, heart stopping and a voice that got my attention. EASY MONEY, ICED, SHOT were a great read but the plot in this one got me all the way to the end, like all of Jenny Siler books the best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is an extraordinary book
Review: Flashback is an extraordinary book - it's difficult to praise it highly enough - six stars maybe?. Jenny Siler never writes formulaic mysteries anyway - since "Easy Money" when she sprang fully mature to the top of the genre, each of her novels has been more tense & atmospheric than the last. Flashback is an investigation by Eve into her own identity. Being left in France for dead, amnesiac, with a gunshot wound to the head, she recuperates with a community of nuns. From her teeth they tell her she's American; from a small scar, they say she had a child - but apart from the only clue to her previous life - a receipt for a ticket on the Tangier-Algeciras ferry - nobody knows who she is or why anybody wanted her dead. When the nuns are massacred - they had come for "the American" they said, Eve flees, taking with her the ferry receipt realising that wherever she is, she will be a danger to others. It involves travel from Marrakesh to Bratislava to discover who wants her dead, but along the way she finds out what kind of woman she is & what she is capable of doing. That she can fight if she must, that she can shoot - but what is she doing in Europe - & North Africa? The writing is beautiful - the plotting emaculate & the atmosphere - created by a background of shifting restless characters & the weather, with vivid descriptions of scents & smells, it creates a tension that grips to the end. I was captivated by the happy ending - I turned the book round & read it again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is an extraordinary book
Review: Flashback is an extraordinary book - it's difficult to praise it highly enough - six stars maybe?. Jenny Siler never writes formulaic mysteries anyway - since "Easy Money" when she sprang fully mature to the top of the genre, each of her novels has been more tense & atmospheric than the last. Flashback is an investigation by Eve into her own identity. Being left in France for dead, amnesiac, with a gunshot wound to the head, she recuperates with a community of nuns. From her teeth they tell her she's American; from a small scar, they say she had a child - but apart from the only clue to her previous life - a receipt for a ticket on the Tangier-Algeciras ferry - nobody knows who she is or why anybody wanted her dead. When the nuns are massacred - they had come for "the American" they said, Eve flees, taking with her the ferry receipt realising that wherever she is, she will be a danger to others. It involves travel from Marrakesh to Bratislava to discover who wants her dead, but along the way she finds out what kind of woman she is & what she is capable of doing. That she can fight if she must, that she can shoot - but what is she doing in Europe - & North Africa? The writing is beautiful - the plotting emaculate & the atmosphere - created by a background of shifting restless characters & the weather, with vivid descriptions of scents & smells, it creates a tension that grips to the end. I was captivated by the happy ending - I turned the book round & read it again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sharp writing, deft characterization.
Review: Following in the tradition of books like The Bourne Identity, Flashback presents readers with a protagonist who can't remember anything about her life prior to the day she appeared on the doorstep of a French convent, unconscious from a severe head wound. The amnesiac, named Eve by the nuns, spends a year with them, living quietly until the night the convent is attacked by persons unknown. Wholesale slaughter ensues, prompting the distraught Eve to flee, carrying the only piece of evidence of her past life--a ticket from the Tangier-Algeciras ferry.

Following that lead, Eve travels to Tangier and boards the ferry, setting in motion an increasingly dangerous series of incidents that provide her with tantalizing hints of her past life. Together with a mysterious American, Brian Harriman, she follows the trail to its end, her need to know who she is outweighing the menaces she encounters along the way.

Harrowing, brutal, amusing, and touching, Flashback is an artful reworking of a sadly overused gimmick, a book that could have easily degenerated into parody. It's a lot of fun to watch Eve unlock the secrets to the past, all the while relying on hidden knowledge and skills to best some of the most repellent villains in recent memory. Siler melds sharp writing, deft characterization, and an ability to create tense, startling, but ultimately believable set pieces to propel her plot forward, skills which keep readers anxiously flipping pages to see what will happen next. Despite her familiar premise, Siler has crafted a memorable tale of intrigue and suspense, a top drawer thriller which can only add to the favorable reputation gained from her previous novels, Easy Money, Iced, and Shot.


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