12 September, 2012

#BookReview :: Chasing Amanda by Melissa Foster

Nine years ago, Molly Tanner witnessed a young girl’s abduction in the busy city of Philadelphia, shifting her occasional clairvoyance into overdrive. Two days later, the girl’s body was found, and Molly’s life fell apart. Consumed by guilt for not acting upon her visions, and on the brink of losing her family, Molly escaped the torturous reminders in the city, fleeing to the safety of the close-knit rural community of Boyds, Maryland. 

Molly’s life is back on track, her son has begun college, and she and her husband have finally rekindled their relationship. Their fresh start is shattered when a seven-year-old girl disappears from a local park near Molly’s home. Unable to turn her back on another child and troubled by memories of the past, Molly sets out to find her, jeopardizing the marriage she’d fought so hard to hold together. While unearthing clues and struggling to decipher her visions, Molly discovers another side of Boyds, where the residents--and the land itself--hold potentially lethal secrets, and exposes another side of her husband, one that threatens to tear them apart.




Molly Tanner is a mother and a clairvoyant.

You may wonder why I started with that line when I could have effectively said a thousand other things. It is because those two words that describe her best and those two characteristics are what comes into play the most. The story starts with Molly getting vague visions of a child. When the child’s dead body is found and it makes it to the news, Molly realizes that she had ‘seen’ the child’s abduction. She is filled with guilt thinking that she could have somehow helped and the child would have been alive – if only she had done something. Unable to handle her guilt, she uproots her family and moves to Maryland for a fresh start. But after nine years when another child goes missing and Molly getting another vision, she decides to take action. This time around, she will not sit idle and will do what needs to be done in order to bring the girl back home. She is ready to put her marriage at risk and her life in danger, but will she succeed.

I’ll get to the ‘I didn’t like’ parts first because that’s going to be short. What I didn’t like was the character portrayal. Though I ‘understood’ them, I really couldn’t be them. You know what I mean? While reading a book, I usually get so involved that when a book is written in first person, I feel as if I am telling my own story and the people in the protagonist’s life are the people I know too. I cannot pinpoint the reason but in this case, I just didn’t feel it. It was like I was silently watching from outside.

Yet, this book took me in its grip right from the beginning. Melissa built her plot with such layers of mystery and intrigues that as a reader I could not help but keep turning those pages. There’s a lot that this plot has to offer with its strong story line and sub-plots there’s not a single dull moment in the book. I can only give credit to the author for her masterful weaving of the story to give it such a smooth flow. And yes the ‘mystery’ is so amazing that I can bet that if you are one of those readers who (like me) likes to guess, well get ready to change your guess a number of times before the whole plot is cleared. This is how the reading experience went for me… “Oh that’s what this is about – wait what? – okay, now I know – how’s that possible – finally got ya – Oh shit!”

Besides the mystery and action, this book also deals with a few aspects of life. For instance a mother’s bond to her child or that the base of a strong marriage lies in unconditional trust and faith. It teaches about the differences in belief and value of loyalty. Like I have said before, it’s the beauty of literature that each piece offers something different to different individuals and I choose to take these away from this book.

Needless to say that I will pick this book up for a second time but only after I am done reading the other books by Melissa Foster.



Buy this Book


6 comments:

  1. Just want to invite you to stop by my blog a moment...
    http://amethysteyesauthor.blogspot.ca/

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  2. This sounds like a great twist on clairvoyants. I love that you said it goes more into her family, her ability, than into the typical 'helping the police' type of story. I think I'll give this one a try. Thank you for the recommendation!

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  3. Great review, very informative without giving away too much detail... loved it! I've never read a book quite like this one before... seems like I'm missing out a great deal!

    http://icanonlybehele3.blogspot.com/

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  4. Sounds interesting!
    Lilhottemomma@yahoo.com

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  5. I have a couple of books by this author on my radar. This is the one I want to read first because it has such an interesting mystery. It sounds gripping and it's great to hear it's like this from the start.

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