this is my first book of our much-adored special agent pendergast chronicles, and allow me to say that this book kick ass, mine, at least.
unlike agatha christie, this book doesn't puzzle me every two seconds with bombastic words, i can glide through it rather easily (though i guess i tapped a lot on my kindle for meaning of certain terms. the one perk of reading with kindle :P)
why i read this book in the beginning? purely aesthetic motive. one day i was perusing the forum for ebooks, and suddenly this handsome portrayal of a fictional character popped out. HE'S SO COOL. i was hooked the first time i saw him, which then trigger me to try reading the book.
i don't know, but this time lady luck is in my side. i really want to like this book, and aside from the rather manageable language, smooth storyline, the suspense and just plain brilliant storybase, i am now another fan of pendergast series, hands down. and this book actually revolves around oddities of the world, which happens to be my favourite matter. two birds with one stone :)
and this book is actually kinda gory, especially the part of how the surgeon performs his killings. it actually gave me goosebumps. eek.
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i read this novel because i want to understand what the hell is going on with a priest of a school performing exorcism that result in opposite effect; the students become even more associated with the force of devil (as told by the narrator). then, nearing the end of the novel, it dawned on me that the devil force is associated with another religion.
so offensive.
the author actually managed to insult two largest religions in the world with a single novel.
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this is actually a fairly pleasant novel about an amish woman, Sara, who daringly challenge the society by becoming a midwife, which was practically nonexistent at that time, thus putting labour into a very risky phase of women's life.
through her midwifery, she met Adam who lost his wife through labour, and his motherless children. he asked her to keep them for a while, he has the secret paranoia of becoming an evil father as his own late father towards the little girls. then something happened, Adam was badly hurt, forcing Sara to live in his house while looking after him as well as the children.
that starts off their episodes of romance, which quickly escalate as the church ordered them to marry as soon as Sara was found out living together with Adam without any ties.
all in all, great novel, great characters, great story.
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this novel includes two stories about the magic of Christmas.
the first one is about a man finally reunited with his old flame and a daughter he never knew to be his.
the second one is actually a cute story of a pair of twins wishing for a mother from Santa, which come to them in the form of their cousin's music teacher, Nell. They tried so hard to try to matchmake their father and Nell, in the cute was children do, and combined with fate, this story ends with happy ending.
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this novel is quite racy, hands down.
the blurb on the cover explains it all.
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the blurb on the cover explains it all.
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one of my favourites, though by now i've forgotten the name of the main character.
she doesn't know what she want to do in her life, so in the meantime, she resorts to being a waitress.
later, she realize that life is all about taking risk, making her own order, instead of taking others'.
the ending is a little staged, but i liked it, it's witty :P
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ya... apparently people DO ask for weird things in a bookshop.
not that funny, but a good material for light reading :)
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