Every so often I pick out a book that I am not so sure about. The types of books I may find on BookGorilla or recommended in the upper right hand corner on Goodreads. To be honest, I have no idea where this came from. I wish I had kept a lifetime list of books that just happen, I can't even give that list a proper title but they usually end up being a fine read. And I always learn later the author has been around with other published books, much to my chagrin. This author has two other books.
Speak Softly, She Can Hear is a thriller by Pam Lewis. Dated back to the sixties when NYC parents were nagging their daughters to do well so they can get into Vassar. Carole Mason had parents of such nature but due to her weight and making the wrong types of friends (though she was brilliant) placed her in a horror of a situation up in Stowe Vermont. That one night changed her life completely. She was only 16.
Letting her parents down was the second heart plunk right after the "situation" in Stowe, a dark happening where I had a hard time believing something of that sort would even exist back then (how old fashion of me, well, obtuse really.) Carole spends the next decade escaping and running from something that would destroy her life if revealed. Her on-again off-again prep school friend, Naomi, who was in Stowe that night, seems to pop up in her life at the very wrong times along with.Eddie, another player from the night in Stowe, creating his evil Carole must endure as payment. Carole is a bundle of nerves and continues on running after many encounters from the past.
Including the own tormented voice inside her head.
People on the lam books tend to make me highly intense. I clench my teeth, rub my forehead, shut the book and run off to do something else like read a magazine but I always return. Even though I may not like the main character at times, I rooted Carole Mason on with vigor. Carole, at one point meets Rachel who is pregnant and lost whom Carole becomes intently kind to and tries with all her heart to help her. I almost feel like I was reading a female version of The Talented Mr. Ripley to a very small degree.
By the time I reached the climax of the story, I wanted my world to suspend for a time. I needed to figure this mess along side of Carole because by then I really wanted things to be better. I was surprised with the ending, and I always give a book a big thumbs up for surprises that elude me as I am usually on the mark figuring things out early on.
One thing that completely amazed me (at forty-seven I should NOT be amazed at this point) was the lack of technology, it made me think, time and time again, why doesn't she get a damn cell phone? But, it's the sixties! How dull of me, then again, how exciting to read characters that survive on pure instinct. Bravo!
Borrow it.
No comments:
Post a Comment