Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog

Book Description

Flora knows better than to take shortcuts in her family home, Crackpot Hall--the house has eleven thousand rooms, and ever since her mother banished the magickal butler, those rooms move around at random. But Flora is late for school, so she takes the unpredictable elevator anyway. Huge mistake. Lost in her own house, she stumbles upon the long-banished butler--and into a mind-blowing muddle of intrigue and betrayal that changes her world forever.

Full of wildly clever plot twists, this extraordinary first novel establishes Ysabeau Wilce as a compelling new voice in teen fantasy.

Customer Reviews:

once of the best of 2007 so far!.......2007-08-18

Well, after that title, there isn't much more to say except that Flora is a
wonderfully loveable girl and I think you'll enjoy getting to know her!
Oh, all right, I do have more to say:) Flora's father is mad, her mother is a general and the best line in a book I've ever read is in chapter 2. This is a strange and beautifully unique tale. This might be a hard sell for some of the teens I know, but it won't stop me from recommending it to everyone.

Is the world ready for Wilce?.......2007-07-14

Here's a fact: Ysabeau S. Wilce is profoundly original. If you read all the customer reviews here, you'll get the sense that this is not your formula fantasy. But let's make that point more clearly--you will never read another story like this one (unless, possibly, it's her next one, which we all eagerly anticipate).

This is the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of what could, and certainly should, be the next story franchise that graduates from cult status to mainstream blockbuster. Wilce doesn't sugar coat the risks of adolescence: she dips them in ice cream, lights them on fire, and serves the reader a flaming torch of strange wonder.

Laughter and thrilling excitement are delightful companions all through this romp. The subtitle gives a sense of the former, but don't underestimate Wilce's storytelling: great characters in real trouble make for great reading, and Flora is a heroine who speaks equally to the reality as well as the ambitions of young people.

Oh yes, and while this is not specifically a unique observation, I'd also like to note that it is always refreshing to find a fantasy that does not take place in something that could pass for Northern Europe.

Waiting for Number 2.......2007-07-11

I'm not sure yet how I feel about this book. I like it but then again I don't. What I like about it is the originality of the story. The world and its characters are fully developed and very interesting, especially Flora. What I really like about Flora is that she is not your average cookie-cutter, in-your-face, outspoken heroine who saves herself by swinging a sword. Flora on the other hand has self-confidence issues, often doubts her own abilities and has the same faults as any other regular teenager, which make her character more genuine. What I don't like about this novel is that the story itself seems to move rather unsteadily. It slows down then speeds up then slows down again. I also had a little trouble understanding some of the magic or "Current" lingo. A short glossary could have helped that. There are also a lot of cliffhangers that hopefully will turn up in the next book. All in all this book was good but not great, hopefully the second will be better.

Original, spirited, and funny.......2007-06-04

Ysabeau Wilce has created a truly original imaginary world refreshingly free of the cliches of the fantasy genre. What's more, she's provided the perfect tour guide to this world: Flora Fyrdraaca, an irreverent, eager, believably adolescent narrator scheming to escape the expectations of her family and become a Ranger--a magic-using secret agent--instead of following family tradition into the army, madness, and doom. Assigned to write a speech in praise of her noble House, Flora narrowly rejects openings like "Crackpot Hall has 11,000 rooms but only one potty." Indeed, the ancestral pile has seen better days, partly for reasons bound up in the power plays of Flora's illustrious mother, a famous general who tolerates no insubordination and has disabled the magical Butler that should keep the house in order. Motivated partly by sympathy and partly by the desire to have someone else muck out the stable, Flora sets herself a quest to restore the Butler to his rightful place, but she soon discovers that the price of a little help with the housework can be, almost literally, her soul. Flora's quirky comic voice always keeps the danger of her predicament and the dysfunctionality of her family from weighing down the story, which bounces lightly along to its conclusion--or rather, temporary conclusion, because this is the first volume of a trilogy. I'm no Young Adult, and this is a Young Adult book, but I can hardly wait for Volume 2.

Cliché Free, Fresh Fantasy.......2007-06-03

I purchased this book for my daughter after reading Charles de Lint's favorable review in Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine (he's rarely steered me wrong) and after growing impatient waiting for her to begin it, I picked it up to skim the first few pages for myself. There was no skimming; I was immediately absorbed and read the book in one sitting. There was no tired "hero's journey" cliché where the orphan, unaware of his great heritage, begins on a lowly farm. There were innovative and captivating devices, smooth wordsmithing, and the kind of intelligent, brave female protagonist I like my daughter to spend time with. Be sure to check out the author's website and blog.

Average customer rating:

Incredibly scary book!
Most scariest book ever...

Red Room Riddle
Scott Corbett
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (Juv)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0316157198

Customer Reviews:

Incredibly scary book!.......2003-12-09

I read this when I was about 10 or 11 and it scared me silly. There was even a live-action tv movie made based on this story, but the book was always way scarier. Too bad this is unavailable. Where have you gone, Scott Corbett?

Most scariest book ever..........2003-10-27

I was scared to death while reading this book...it's a great great book...I'm trying to track down a used copy...

Why oh why are Scott Corbett's books out of print? They were fun to read.

Amazon.com

Penzler Pick, August 2001: Already a sensation in England, Nicci French (the pseudonym of a London couple who've turned their marriage into a writing partnership as well) is quickly gaining recognition and fans on this side of the Atlantic, too. French's two previous novels published here, Killing Me Softly and Beneath the Skin, are romantic thrillers with hard edges--a little like a marriage of convenience between Sally Beauman and Ian Rankin.

But The Red Room is a change of pace that is reminiscent of Frances Fyfield, only without her stylistic quirks. It also asks a lot of the reader in imagining the deliberately obtuse or arrogant ways in which the police sometimes interfere in the lives of those not on the public payroll.

In this case, the two people whose lives are being most unfairly manipulated hold opposite, even antagonistic, places in society. One is a clinical psychologist, Katherine Quinn; the other, Michael Doll, is the troubled young man who not long ago left her with terrible facial disfigurement, having suddenly attacked her while undergoing an evaluation in his jail cell. Somehow, out of curiosity, misplaced duty, and a desire to try to "reduce him to his human size," Kit Quinn allows a police detective to talk her into seeing Michael once again. This time her nemesis--about whom she has recurring nightmares of a blood-spattered red room--stands accused of murder. The trouble is, after coming face to face with him, Dr. Quinn isn't at all convinced he's guilty.

Nicci French has better success with the setup of this suspenseful, twisty situation than she does with its resolution. But The Red Room provides superior entertainment, with a complex and all-too-human heroine at the center of its drama. --Otto Penzler

Book Description

Dr. Kit Quin, at the request of the police, does a psychological evaluation of Michael Doll, a disturbed young man seen hanging around primary schools. While in questioning, Doll smashes a mug and tears up Kit's face. Nightmares of a red room afflict Kit during her recovery. In the red room, nightmares become real.

Three months later, the police again ask for Dr. Quin's help. They are questioning Michael Doll in connection with the possible murder of Lianne, a teenage drifter, by the canal where he fishes. Kit doesn't think he's the canal killer and explores a theory of hers with the help of Will Pavic, director of a center for such transients as Lianne. Will had cast off his prosperous yet hollow career in finance to look after London's runaways, the young and the lost. Kit and Will discover the unlikely connection Lianne had with a young theater couple. Meanwhile, Doll is becoming more and more peculiar, and his infatuation with Kit is growing dangerous. As her own terror intensifies, the red room becomes a horrifying reality. Kit confronts the killer in a harrowing encounter of pure evil for the forgotten Lianne.

Download Description

Interviewing people in police custody is part of Dr. Kit Quinn's job. But when Michael Doll, a disturbed derelict caught hanging around a London schoolyard, breaks a mug and tears up her face during questioning, he also cracks her composure and self-confidence. The incident leaves her with recurring dreams of a red room, where nightmares become real.…

Three months later, Kit is again called upon to talk to Michael Doll after the police pick him up for the murder of a teenage runaway. Her colleagues in the department think that involving Kit in the case might help her recovery and put Doll behind bars for good. It doesn't do either. For Kit believes Doll didn't do it, and he walks free.

Touched by the fate of the homeless girl, Kit becomes involved in a dangerous, deadly inquiry. But when she links the teenager's murder to the high-profile case of a pretty blond housewife, abducted in broad daylight and killed, the main figure in the middle of it all is…Michael Doll. As her investigation continues, Kit finds him always in the shadows. Outside her doorway. Inside her apartment. Calling her on the phone. Wanting to love her. Yet, even with her fear escalating, Kit has the gut feeling that Doll isn't a killer. Even more frightening is her suspicion about who is…

In her previous books, Nicci French claimed the territory of violent obsession as her own. Here she explores the geography of the twisted psyche even more deeply, breaking new ground as she opens up the dark places in the human mind…and reveals the red room, a place of nightmares, inside us all.

Customer Reviews:

A Chore to Get Through.......2007-07-09

I didn't find the mystery very compelling and found it hard to care about any of the characters. I also hated the ending, it didn't make sense to me.

Compelling and Macabre.......2006-07-01

The Nicci French Duo has a nice, solid entry into their suspense series with The Red Room. The story is very easy to read with good pacing and clever atmosphere creation to give a reader the creeps. The plot is cleverly put together; and although the ending wasn't quite as fun as getting to the end, the final product was really worth reading. This is not their strongest novel, but it's a fun read anyhow.

THE RED ROOM IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE NOVEL .......2006-03-30

Interview people in police custody is part of Kit Quinn's job. But when Michael Doll, a disturbed derelict caught hanging around a London schoolyard, breaks a mug and tears up her face during questioning, he also cracks her compisure and self confidence. The incident leaves her with recurring dreams of a red room, where nightmares become real...

Three months later, Kit is again called upon to talk to Michael Doll after the police pick him up for the murder of a teenage runaway. Her colleagues in the department think that involving Kit in the case might help her recovery and put Doll behind bars for good. It doesn't do either. For Kit believes Doll didn't do it, and he walks free.

Touched by the fate of the homeless girl, Kit becomes involved in a dangerous, deadly inquiry. But when she links the teenager's murder to the high-profile case of a pretty blond housewife, abducted in broad daylight and killed, the main figure in the middle of it all is...Michael Doll. As her investigation continues, Kit finds him always in the shadows. Outside her doorway. Inside her apartment. Calling her on the phone. Wanting to love her. Yet, even with her fear escalating, Kit has the gut feeling that Doll isn't a killer. Even more frightening is her suspicion about who is...

In her previous books, Nicci French claimed the territory of violent obsession as her own. Here she explores the geography of the twisted psyche even more deeply, breaking new ground as she opens up the dark places in the human mind...and reveals the red room, a place of nightmares, inside us all.

Another great thriller!.......2004-07-28

Nicci French has this endless dark imagination! Although the name of the book seems decieving after having read it, the book never the less kept me going till the end. She writes so well I forget that it's 4'oclock in the morning and have to get to bed! I just have to finish it!

Where our nightmares become reality..........2003-05-19

The Red Room is a story of mystery and intrigue, yet it's so much more than your basic mystery novel. It entwines suspense and fear with human fragility and the need for meaning.
The plot revolves around the murders of two women in London. Though seemingly unrelated, there is one feature they share: the police's belief that a convicted pedophile by the name of Michael Doll is responsible for them. Clinical Psychologist Dr. Kit Quinn is asked by the police to give a psychological evaluation of Doll during the police investigation, during which Doll smashes a mug and uses it to scar Kit's face. When she returns from the hospital and the cases have escalated, Kit is more inclined than ever to prove to the police what she believes Michael Doll is - innocent.

While the book focuses mainly on the murders and the suspects, you can't help but realize that the underlying issue is the effect that the accident had of Kit's self-confidence, shattering it and immersing her in self-doubt and loss of self. Her intense interest in the case seems to stem not only from her care for the victims, but also from her need to prove she's still competent and to take her mind off her own problems. In order to solve the crimes though, she'll need to piece herself back together before she can help the police.

While Nicci French works overtime to build up the sordid web that is the plot, the ending isn't as fulfilling as one would hope and occasionally the plot seems to get sidetracked. Also, the main character is not quite as open as one might like her to be, causing frustration at times considering the novel is told in first person tense. The hunt for the killer and the complexity of the character relationships still make it a worthwhile and addictive read.

The title of the book comes from a dream Kit has while she was recovering in the hospital. It is a metaphor for the center of all the fears we carry, a place inside all of us where our nightmares become reality. Basically, the book succeeds in what it sets out for. Showing us that the only way to escape our fears is to enter the "red room" and face them.

The Red Room
Average customer rating:
The Red Room
August STRINDBERG
Manufacturer: Putnam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000I1QNS4

Murder in the Red Room
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Murder in the Red Room
Elliott Roosevelt
Manufacturer: Avon Books (Mm)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Historical | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
Series | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
Women Sleuths | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
Roosevelt, Elliott | ( R ) | Authors, A-Z | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0380721430

Merrivale Holds the Key: Two Classic Locked-Room Mysteries : The Plague Court Murders/the Red Widow Murders (Library of Crime Classics)
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Introducing H.M.

Merrivale Holds the Key: Two Classic Locked-Room Mysteries : The Plague Court Murders/the Red Widow Murders (Library of Crime Classics)
Carter Dickson
Manufacturer: International Polygonics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
Dickson, Carter | ( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
20th Century | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Judas Window

ASIN: 1558820272

Customer Reviews:

Introducing H.M........2006-12-11

The Plague Court Murders (1934) and The Red Widow Murders (1935) are two of the first, and best, mysteries featuring John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson's detective Sir Henry Merrivale. In the first, a cynical promoter of séances is brutally murdered while in a locked room, and a legendary local ghost is seemingly the only suspect. In the second, a young man agrees to spend the night in a haunted room, and when the room is unlocked after two hours he is dead of no apparent cause, and had been for more than an hour--though he had seemingly answered calls from his friends waiting outside the room during that time. The mysteries baffle everyone, including especially the readers--no detective fiction writer ever produced mysteries that, while being fair in the presentation of clues, were harder to figure out--but H.M. is always equal to the challenge.

While in some of his later (postwar) appearances H.M. became a more comic figure, given to tantrums and buffoonery, this tendency was as yet under control in these works, which established the character's well-deserved reputation as one of the greatest literary detectives of the so-called Golden Age of mysteries. His introduction in Plague Court Murders is classic. The "Maestro" welcomes old friends and colleagues who he worked alongside as espionage agents during the "Great War" into his shabby Whitehall office, unapologetically drinking brandy and smoking cigars while at work, and in his inimitable cranky, intimidating style, begins to get to the bottom of gruesome, baffling, seemingly supernatural crimes.

But there is a real sense of sadness as well as fun about H.M., whose loud antics thinly veil his regret over the deaths and disappointment his cases invariably bring to light, and his keen, watchful intelligence--he is like a poker player (and H.M. is mentioned off-handedly as being a fine one) whose bluster and jokes are intended to distract his opponents and observers from figuring out what he is really thinking and planning. One can readily see how H.M. could have been a formidable intelligence officer (where deception is so critical) as well as a masterful detective. But what really sets him apart from the Holmeses and Queens and Wolfes is perhaps that he seems immensely more sheer fun to spend time with. At one point in The Red Widow Murders (Chapter 11) H.M. insists that his "Watson" spend a late night with him at home, drinking whiskey and coffee, conversing interestingly and intelligently but rarely to the point, and playing board games ("what looked like children's pursuits") until the sun comes up. There likely has never been another fictional detective as amusing, interesting, and impressive, and he was never more so then in these two classic novels.

Average customer rating:

Very good, but
exquisite storytelling...
sad and lovely
A vivid journey through China
An erotic literary masterpiece!

Dream of the Blue Room: A Novel
Michelle Richmond
Manufacturer: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Psychological & Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1931561249

Book Description

On a warm night in July, 32-year-old Jenny finds herself sitting on the deck of a Chinese cruise ship next to a charming but secretive stranger. In Jenny's lap is a tin containing the ashes of her best friend, Amanda Ruth, mysteriously murdered fourteen years earlier in a small Alabama town.

In this foreign landscape, filled with ancient cities that will soon be inundated by the rising waters of the Yangtze River, Jenny must confront her haunted past and decide the direction of her future. As the ship moves slowly upriver, from one abandoned village to another, Jenny journeys deeper into her own guilt and eroticism.

Dream of the Blue Room explores the nature of friendship and the intimacy that exists between young girls as they struggle toward adulthood. Set against the impressive landscape of the Yangtze, this stunning novel reflects on the human desire to control and tame what is ultimately untamable.

Customer Reviews:

Very good, but .......2006-12-21

I really enjoyed reading this novel but what kept me going was wondering how the death of Amanda Ruth was going to be resolved. Did the main character do it? Would there be a confession, or was it some unexpected person or the girl's Chinese father. The problem is that nothing ever really happened. Nothing was resolved. I was disappointed with the ending, with everything hanging up in the air, people left with other strangers, trying to drudge up something, but never really having it come to the surface.

The writing was interesting. The short paragraphs and chapters helped to propel me through the book, but my opinion is that there was no real story here, just a listing of feelings, observations and events. I agree with other reviewers about the delightful dream-like quality of some portions of the book.

I was also disappointed with the depth of her observations on China. I mean, I was hoping to actually learn something, to come away with something I didn't know before, but no. I got about the same amount of info that I'd get from reading a Wikipedia piece or some travel book.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I gave it 4 stars, and I'm not related ...

exquisite storytelling..........2005-07-21

Reviewed by Joanna Pearson for Small Spiral Notebook

Foreign travel is about learning to exist in a dreamy state of in-between-ness. Unknown and ungrounded, you wander through strange environs seeing strange faces, and yet the ever-resourceful mind manages to seize upon vague familiarities, constructing a hybrid place that has the eerie quality of a dreamscape. So we find our main character, Jenny, on a cruise ship in China in Michelle Richmond's debut novel Dream of a Blue Room. Tense and insomniac, Jenny has traveled here on a dual mission: to resolve her collapsing marriage one way or the other, and to scatter the ashes of her murdered childhood best friend. As in all good stories that unfold on a plane, train, bus, or ship (with a nod to the Hitchcockian principle), Jenny soon finds her task complicated by the pull she feels towards Graham, a fellow traveler she meets who has his own reasons for making this voyage.

Redmond excels in conjuring that state of heightened, dream-like awareness fueled by lack of sleep and periods of intense emotional stress. Her deft descriptions of the Chinese landscape and Yangtze serve as a context for Jenny's extended meditation on her own riverside childhood in Alabama and the history of her failing marriage. The two settings and time periods are ambitiously and successfully interwoven, much to Redmond's credit. She is as en point in her descriptions of Chinese river dolphins, funeral ceremonies, and elderly tea shop ladies as she is in her descriptions of tubing, Sunday School, and watermelons in Mobile. Much more than travel fiction, this is instead a story of growing up as an outsider in the South, revealed through contrast-like looking at the negatives of a series of photos in order to see what you couldn't have noticed otherwise. In this way, China triggers a reflection on Jenny's life back home, proof of the idea that one understands home the best when away from it. We realize very quickly that Jenny's relationship with the murdered Amanda Ruth was more than a mere friendship. Redmond beautifully describes the intimacy, both physical and emotional, between two girls during the pivotal period of late adolescence, as well as the grinding forces of Southern culture and religion that threatened this intimacy.

For the most part, Redmond's prose has a lovely lyricality. She is at her best when describing situations with clarity and simplicity-she has a keen sense of place, an eye for details like how the raindrops fall at a particular instant. Redmond is a sensual writer and on occasion, her writing can veer towards the overripe, particularly when describing erotic moments. There could have been fewer oversignified descriptions of sex, and the book would have been none the worse for it. Throughout most of the novel, however, Redmond's touch is far subtler, allowing a memory of a summer afternoon in a boathouse or a Chinese funeral procession to do no more symbolic load bearing than warranted.

As the cruise ship eases down the river, the reality of Jenny's ending marriage becomes apparent even as her relationship with newcomer Graham rapidly progresses. It is through this new, albeit short-lived relationship with Graham and the drastic act he requests of her that Jenny is ultimately able to exit her suspended state. With the slow build-up of a mystery, the exquisite pain of a coming-of-age novel, the masterful images of a travel writer, and a darkness that is true to the Southern Gothic, Dream of a Blue Room is a work of wonderfully chimeric form. And through this, a novelistic form that skillfully defies a single genre, Redmond, quite fittingly, tells the story of a woman finding her way out of the boundaries of singular categories, out of limbo, out of the in-between.

sad and lovely.......2003-12-13

Michelle Richmond's novel is an impressive, impressionistic vision of a woman suffering one loss after another, and growing incredibly strong along the way. There's a vivid evocation of China, almost a secondary character in the novel. And there's even a villain or two for the reader to hate. There are many moments of luminous writing, reflecting the dreamlike quality suggested by the title. And, oh yeah, there's some really good sex too.

A vivid journey through China.......2003-10-01

This novel takes you up the Yangtze River during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The descriptions of abandoned villages and bustling riverside cities are lush and unforgettable. But something more is happening in this novel. While the main character, Jenny, travels up the Yangtze, her marriage is falling apart. The dissolution of the marriage is captured with painful accuracy, and the memories of Jenny's adolescent relationship with a girl named Amanda Ruth are both sensual and poignant. Jenny and Amanda Ruth were so close and Jenny's love for her was so strong that, even though Amanda Ruth is dead, she is a constant presence in Jenny's mind.

If you've ever been to China, or if you ever plan to go, this book should be your travel companion!

An erotic literary masterpiece!.......2003-07-06

Finally, an erotic novel in which the story and the writing are just as good as the sex scenes. My book club spent half an hour discussing the scene in the cave...Richmond combines lush, poetic prose with page-turning suspense. A book club winner!

Berlin--The Red Room and White Beer: The 'Free' Hegelian Radicals in the 1840s (Time/Space--Artists and Scholars, V. 2)

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Berlin--The Red Room and White Beer: The 'Free' Hegelian Radicals in the 1840s (Time/Space--Artists and Scholars, V. 2)
Robert James Hellman
Manufacturer: Passeggiata Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0894106686

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The Red Room Riddle: A Ghost Story
Scott Corbett
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (Juv Pap)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0316157546

Average customer rating:

A taste of New Orleans before its devastation

Red Room Rendezvous
Paulette Crain
Manufacturer: Oak Tree Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

South | Regional U.S. | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Rich & Famous | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Product Description

Meet William Lafayette Holcomb, erstwhile Southern aristocrat, erudite, witty, storyteller without peer, and more often drunk than sober as he strolls the streets of the Garden District with the author, relating one New Orleans melodrama after another. Join the author as she lunches at Café Atchafalaya to interview Miss Iler, its eccentric and outspoken proprietor. From the jewel of Buzz Harper s manse to the end-of-the-road Rendezvous Tavern, this is a tour of New Orleans that is not likely to be in any guidebook., and proof, once again, that reality is frequently stranger and more entertaining than fiction.

Customer Reviews:

A taste of New Orleans before its devastation .......2005-09-06

I really loved this book because the writing put me into a city which I had never stepped foot: New Orleans. (And since Hurricane Katrina has wiped out much of NOLA this book can serve as part of its rich history.) The character development is superb; I really cared about each person, from the primary to secondary characters. The detail Ms. Crain gives to her beloved New Orleans paints an eloquent picture for the reader of the rich tradition of the French Quarter, the architecture and its unique people. Bill Holcomb, the book's main character, brings vitality into what is normally a depressing subject of the human excesses of addiction and its depressing toll on those whose loved ones -- even friends -- are affected. It's my personal opinion that RRR would make a great miniseries on one of the pay channels to fully explore the depths of each character without holding back the true feelings of those around them due of FCC censorship.

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