Helpful Score: 2
Excellent book that had me hooked from the beginning. I'm usually pretty good at predicting endings, but this one totally surprised me. It was awesome!
Helpful Score: 2
Anticipation of the inevitable provides the compelling hook in Sloan's solidly crafted debut, as readers wait for date-rape victim Karen Kern to turn the tables on her attacker. In 1962, the attractive collegian is brutally assaulted in N.Y.C.'s Central Park by a Harvard Law student she has just met at a Christmas party. Subsequently spurned by her fiance-and in a sense by police and her parents, who assume she provoked the assault-Karen slowly carves a professional niche for herself but shuns any romantic attachments. Sloan juxtaposes Karen's uneasy maturation during the ensuing 30 years with the professional triumphs and behind-the-scenes shenanigans of California political aspirant Robert Willmont, Karen's erstwhile rapist. Both story lines occasionally become weighted down by domestic melodrama, though Sloan's array of colorful and credible supporting characters-and her keen observations of the passing decades-generally overcome any hurdles. And, when her protagonists finally reconnect, any shortcomings are forgiven, as the book's final third rushes headlong towards a taut and thoroughly satisfying finale.
Helpful Score: 1
Really enjoyed this book! It is one of those books that has stuck with me and I've read it again since. A fun read with an interesting plot twist.
Helpful Score: 1
December 22, 1962: A pretty young coed is found brutally beaten and sexually assaulted by her date - a handsome, wealthy Harvard law student. No one sees him do it and the police don't believe her story. Her life is entirely ruined while his flourishes. Now thirty years later, Senator Robert Drayton Wilmont has succeeded in becoming a suave, self-assured politician with aspirations of being America's next president, unless America learns the truth.
Karen Kern has suffered more than enough. Thirty years after she was brutally raped, beaten and left for dead by Bob - a charming Harvard law student whom she innocently allowed to escort her home from a friend's Christmas party - she is still tormented by nightmares, trapped by fear and rage, and held prisoner by her shame. It was ultimately her word against his, and as the privileged son of an affluent and extremely powerful family, his claims were believed. Justice was denied to her, and Karen's life was completely altered from its original course.
Fueled by three decades of horrific memories, secrets and lies, Karen will do what most victims never do. She will get even. Justice delayed won't be justice denied for much longer if Karen Kern has her way...
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was an excellent plot with a very satisfying twist at the end. In my opinion, Susan R. Sloan is a brilliant writer. I give this book a definite A+! and am eagerly searching for more books to read by this author.
Karen Kern has suffered more than enough. Thirty years after she was brutally raped, beaten and left for dead by Bob - a charming Harvard law student whom she innocently allowed to escort her home from a friend's Christmas party - she is still tormented by nightmares, trapped by fear and rage, and held prisoner by her shame. It was ultimately her word against his, and as the privileged son of an affluent and extremely powerful family, his claims were believed. Justice was denied to her, and Karen's life was completely altered from its original course.
Fueled by three decades of horrific memories, secrets and lies, Karen will do what most victims never do. She will get even. Justice delayed won't be justice denied for much longer if Karen Kern has her way...
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was an excellent plot with a very satisfying twist at the end. In my opinion, Susan R. Sloan is a brilliant writer. I give this book a definite A+! and am eagerly searching for more books to read by this author.
