Rating: 
Summary: "A Fabulous First Effort!"
Review: "Acquisition Of Power," is an exciting story from page one on...A compelling tale of greed, hostile takeovers, passions and desires. Ms. Barr's talent for creating believable characters and lively dialogue is very impressive...A Fabulous First Effort To Be Sure. I look forward to reading more books by this wonderful author in the very near future.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating!
Review: A throuroughly enjoyable read. I starting reading and couldn't put it down because I couldn't wait to see what happened to the bad guys (and girls). I hope there's a sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: DULL !!
Review: Acquisition of Power by Erika Barr, is a rather unimaginative mystery novel. It was dull and without the tension and suspense that a good mystery requires to hook the reader. I bought this book because of all the glowing reviews sorry I forgot the rule of thumb in doing that...Don't believe all the hype on firstime writers books !! This book was a major disappointment to me !!
Rating: 
Summary: An impressive debut
Review: Erika Barr has written a captivating book on the inner dirty
workings of large corporations and their mergers. However, even
a reader who is not interested in the dealings that go on in the
business world will be glued to this book. It puts heavy emphasis
on the description of the human characters, their thinking
patterns, their needs and their dreams. The story is logical and
there is plenty of suspense to keep the reader guessing. Greed is
good in this book!
Rating:
Summary: entertaining
Review: Erika Barr has written a very entertaining book that was hard to put aside until the very end.
Rating:
Summary: A titillating melange of events
Review: First time novelist Erika Barr's book Acquisition of Power is a titillating melange of an unfriendly corporate takeover, adultery, murder, a child born out of an adulterous affair, deviated sex, lesbianism, drugs, blackmail, communication with the spiritual, and whatever else the author can think of that will keep her readers stimulated and excited. Wow it is like, as the French say, "La grande bouffe.!" (Incidentally, our author also likes to sprinkle in French expressions.) The underlying theme of all of these exploits and one that is constantly repeated throughout the book is that "greed is good." Barr's inspiration probably finds its roots in her working experiences with a Fortune 500 company as a developer of high-tech solutions that were used to support corporate mergers and acquisitions. I am not quite sure how much of her own first hand knowledge Barr had experienced pertaining to the subject matter of unfriendly takeovers.
There is mention in the "Acknowledgments" that she did seek out insight from others into how mergers play out. However, I would have to admit, there is nothing to replace being present in the boardrooms and watching the drama. The central theme of the story revolves around two chief executive officers, one of whom is faced with the unwanted takeover of his telecommunications company by the other. As the story unfolds we learn of the unsavoury behaviour of these two CEO'S as well as their assistants, who strongly believe, "greed is good."
To a limited degree the author maintains interest in her tale by pandering to our voyeuristic tendencies.
However, unfortunately, the weak dialogue of the characters does not enhance their believability.
Elements that perfectly describe or typify characters and scenes are lacking. In other words, there is an absence of the quintessential that is necessary if you want to create credible protagonists and scenes. Notwithstanding all of the above comments, I would have to admit that Barr shows great promise as a good storyteller with a very vivid imagination. Once she masters her craft, she will be an author to be on the lookout for. This review first appeared on the reviewer's own site
Rating:
Summary: Greed (and lust!) is good...
Review: I finished reading this book a couple of nights ago. It was supposed to be my bedtime reading, but the last scoop had enough suspense to keep me up and sleepless till 6 am! I think this is an impressive feat for a first book, and i am quite impressed by the complexity of the plot and the ideas that the author came up with. I think it's a promising start! Although my understanding is that the book was being written even before the corporate scandals of the last year came up in the open, one cannot help wondering how realistic (or how far-fetched) a scenario like that in the book might be in the "real" corporate world... Did the author just want to write a suspense fiction story or did she also try to make some statement about how some corporations are actually run? I, and i think many readers, would be quite curious to know... Overall, well done!
Rating:
Summary: "A Gripping Yarn"
Review: I recently travelled and some friends recommended this book. I found it to be an excellent companion during the long and tedious hours in airport lounges and on the planes. The book is engaging, intelligent, suspenseful, with a plethora of twists to satisfy my adventurous streak. In short this is a promising beginning by the author Erika Barr.
Rating:
Summary: Stupendous!
Review: The book is great. If you work in the Corporate world, you know these people! She has the skinny on mergers. I finished at 3:00 a.m.. I couldn't go to sleep without knowing what happened. Great work for a first book. Can't wait for the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Stupendous!
Review: The book is great. If you work in the Corporate world, you know these people! She has the skinny on mergers. I finished at 3:00 a.m.. I couldn't go to sleep without knowing what happened. Great work for a first book. Can't wait for the next one.
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