Personally I skimmed parts of this book. I still haven't made my mind up whether the hero or the heroine had less brains. I think for me the heroine is slightly ahead on lacking common sense. There is the hero's faithful groom who deceives the hero etc.

You may like it after all this author has published a number of books but personally I was uncomfortable with it.

Nothing exciting ever happens to Miss Penelope Hamilton. Nothing, that is, until she is sent to live with her grandmother, the Honorable Mrs. Kendrick-and her carriage is held up by the most wanted brigand in all of England! But that's just the beginning of exciting adventure for Pen, for she soon discovers that Mrs. Kendrick's beautiful estate is not exactly what it seems, and neither is her serious-and handsome-step-son, Owen. Soon Pen is snooping around the house and closely following Owen's every move-something that isn't altogether unpleasant. Owen Kendrick is beginning to suspect that the lovely, seemingly guileless Pen has some secrets of her won. Someone has been pilfering things from the house. and Pen has been acting a bit funny, especially since that kiss they shared... Could there be someone else in Pen's affections? Or has Owen been the most successful thief-at stealing her heart?

A well-written and enjoyable book!

This is a great book. Of course, you'd have to have an interest in the time and the place, the 1st half of the 19th Century and the coast of Georgia. Emminently readable, with good expositions of the various agricultural practices of the time. Well done.

As a Georgia 'native' and historian with a deep interest in the field, I found this to be a fascinating text. But I would certainly agree that you have to have an interest in the topic--in which case it is well worth buying and reading.

I think all the Neo-tech authors should try to be a little more versatile in their writing. They start becoming monotonous in their wording so much that it becomes more of a hassle than a joy to read it. The funny thing is that most of their reason for writing seems to be from their personal conflicts with the IRS. What works for them definitely does not necessarily work for everyone else.

With this change of attitude, there will be a breakdown of the old way of disastrous thinking, and a new way will develop to replace the old that is founded in life and happiness.

Anita is so far from the original character we fell in love with when the series began and not for the better. She's not a vampire but now has a vampire as her human servent, she's not a werewolf but is now lupa and enforcer of Richard's pack, she's not a were leopard but managed to be leopard queen of her pard and now Micah's. Anita is always the best, always the one in charge, always the most powerful, always the one that rescues, always the one that beats the bad guys, always the one everyone is afraid of. The list goes on and on, it's too much for even my level of disbelief and I no longer root for her. The author keeps telling us that God still thinks Anita is good all the while telling us over and over again how she can kill and feel nothing. Who is she trying to convince, herself? LKH has really painted her into a corner and there is no going back. I never thought I'd say this but this is it for me, I doubt Laurell can pull the series out of the mess she's made with it nor recapture the magic of previous novels. Too much, too fast for our heroine. I not only don't recgonize her anymore but my biggest surprise was that I don't even like her either.

I've read all the Anita Blake books, and enjoyed them all, except this one. I've thought for several books that Anita was getting too violent, but in this one, she loses the last shreds of her morals, and appears dedicated to pursuing all the sex, violence, and violent sex she can get. This book is almost totally plotless! Anita used to be a great character I could love and admire- the Anita in this book is just a bloodthirsty ...

Oh my good god, do not read this book. It's worse than a Harlequin romance novel. It's awful. Awful. Pure evil. A disgrace to the series.

Ow. Make it go away.

Alice Goodwin is a troubled woman living on a dairy farm in Prairie Center, Wisconsin. The mother of two girls, Emma (6) and Claire (3), she is struggling to get her life together. When her husband Howard decided to pursue his dream of being a dairy farmer, she went along with him, but they have been trying to make ends meet. Alice is the school nurse at the local elementary school, and after the terrible drowning of the two-year old neighbor who was in Alice's care, she is suddenly faced with sexual harassment charges from one of the students at the school. While she is in jail Howard desperately tries to keep the family from falling apart, which proves very difficult, and everyone's breath is held leading up to and during the trial. I liked this book, because of the strong emotions and sub-plots. The reader really feels as if he/she is experiencing the unfolding of the carefully planned plot, riding along with the family as they dodge all of the ruts in the road of life. It is amazing to read the story through the eyes of both Alice and Howard. I would recommend this book for most people ages 13 and older.

I found this book nothing less than exquisite and have purchased it for my friends and family as a "must read". The writing is drenched in evocative descriptions that not only frame the characters and storylines but also stand alone as unusually creative and moving metaphors.

Ms. Hamilton has chosen subject matter that could easily be trite - the death of a child, sexual molestation. However, she awards each of her characters a dignity that allows them to transcend their situations and evoke the greatest compassion from the reader. We see that Alice has made mistakes, that she can be faulted. However her shortcomings are decidedly undeserving of her punishments (which are extreme, from the loss of a best friend's trust to criminal charges). What I believe the book makes obvious is that we are all susceptible to being blamed for hideous things due to unusual circumstances, even if we have lead our lives as decent people. We must look at the misfortunes of Alice with compassion, knowing that small mistakes can lead to dire consequences.

What I loved most about this book is its message of hope. Alice's family, friendships and career fall apart completely and her best friend loses a beloved child, yet they still are able to rebuild their lives. These women may not end up where they started, or where they anticipated, but ultimately the human spirit, love and family prevail.

I find it interesting that so many people rated the book low based on the "depression factor." A sad fact of life is that it isn't always happy - and this book is definitely not about a happy life. It's about pain, loss, betrayal, tragedy; perhaps not an "enlightening" or "engaging" read, but it doesn't betray the reader with a happy-happy joy-joy ending, either.

Hamilton is true to the readers who have the courage to stick with her through Alice's fear, Howard's confusion and feeling of helplessness, the anger and incivility of those who should know better, and the unspeakable pain of Teresa. No other ending would have served these characters justice: it is an honest ending, not neatly wrapped in shiny paper with a slick bow that says, "And they lived happily ever after."

There are many wonderfully light-hearted and happy ending books out there. If you want a light mix of suspense and happy ending, try Mary Higgins Clark. But keep "Map of the World" on your potential reading list if only for the sorrowful and powerful insights into humanity that it provides.

Aaron Burr has long been dismissed as one of the bad boys of American history. The Revolutionary War hero and onetime VP under Jefferson shot his political future in the foot when he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, and was later tried for treason for conspiring to invade Mexico.

Here Roger Kennedy retrieves Burr from the slag heap of history and rehabilitates him as perhaps the most progressive of the founding fathers: a fervent abolitionist, early feminist and friend to the Indians long before such ideals were considered kosher. To Hamilton and Jefferson, Kennedy is not so kind. Hamilton cuts an almost pathetic figure as a frustrated politician who projects his own failures onto Burr and determines to ruin him even at the cost of his own life. Meanwhile, Kennedy's Jefferson is craven, duplicitous and vindictive.

But Burr's image has suffered because he could never match Hamilton's skills as spin doctor, nor could he compete with the voluminous paper trail left behind by Jefferson. Whereas the sage of Monticello meticulously copied every scrap he wrote, most of Burr's papers were lost at sea, along with his last surviving daughter and would-be biographer, Theodosia.

Despite this imbalance in the documentary evidence, Kennedy presents a compelling case that Burr was not a traitor, as Jefferson charged in 1806. (Burr was later acquitted of treason by four separate juries, an indication of Jefferson's stubbornness as much as Burr's probable innocence.) Instead, Kennedy shows that Burr exhibited every sign of loyalty to the young republic, whose borders he probably hoped to expand by force--much as Jefferson would do by checkbook with the Louisiana Purchase.

This is an enormously satisfying book, one that goes farther to rescue Aaron Burr from an undeserved historical contempt than any book since Gore Vida1's elegant fiction BURR. It is still a reflex to dismiss Thomas Jefferson's first Vice-President as a sly scheming traitor who murdered the well-beloved Hamilton in a one-sided duel where Hamilton deliberately and romantically threw away his shot.. It is all thoughtless and unscrutinized balderdash, and Kennedy has a wonderful time proving it. There are surprising and provocative ideas on every page, and fascinating portraits of the brilliant neurotic Hamilton, and the almost perfect hypocrisy and subtle genius of Thomas Jefferson. Most of all, however, is the picture Kennedy draws of the witty, graceful gentleman who was Aaron Burr. Kennedy call him America's first professional politician, but he was far more than that(and if he was that, what was Jefferson?) To say that he was an abolitionist and a feminist does not really do him justice; he practiced what he preached, as Kennedy amply describes, fifty, even a hundred, even two hundred years ahead of his time. His generosity was outsized, his intellect keen, without cant or self-delusion. A scion of one of the colonies first and oldest familes, he was an honest to God Revolutionary War hero not once but many times, (unlike The Sage of Monticello, to say the least). Like Jane Austen's Gentleman, Burr never apologized and never explained. This last was a grievous mistake, because his silence, to his contemporaries and to posterity, though elegant, ceded much ground to his enemies. Much of Burr's abolitionist activity was done in association with Alexander Hamilton, whose anti-slavery views were grounded in his youth in the West Indies, where he could see slavery and its affect close up. There was much to admire in both of these men, and their contemporaries did so. But Hamilton carried a molten envy of Burr for many years, years during which Burr apparently had not a clue that his friend-rival-ally-competitor was viciously and continuously slandering him, sharing opinions about Burr that went beyond the norm of political rivalry, making certain that Burr would not succeed in politics even if it meant that Jefferson whom he despised, would. But Burr was more than Hamilton1s opponent; he was the man who, in almost every respect, from military heroism to family background to manners to wit to success with the ladies, Hamilton yearned to be. And everything Hamilton hated in himself, argues Kennedy, he projected on to Burr. And then there is Jefferson. It has become open season on Jefferson these last few years, and high time too. Jefferson's undoubted brilliance as a literary stylist and his extraordinary ability as a practical and cunning politician have kept him at the top of the heap for decade after decade, but much of that vaunted reputation The Great Democrat, or The Great Commoner, or the Great Something or Other, does not hold up under close scrutiny. Jefferson knew when to flatter, and when to betray, as when he broke his oath to Burr in 1800 and bargained for the Presidency. He wrote the undying phrase that all men are created equal, and then strangled the L'Ourverture Revolution in Haiti because he was terrified of black sovereignty. Kennedy is wonderful in discerning plausible motives to Jefferson's unquenchable need to destroy Burr, a man who might very well have moved up abolitions' cause by 50 years. The various accounts of back room snakiness by The Sage, and the description of the similarity between Jefferson's Western machinations both before and after Burr's trial for treason for the same activities(which Jefferson pushed with a Shakespearean malignity) are priceless. There are greater tragedies in America's past, I suppose, than the consignment of Aaron Burr to the Most Reviled Villain Category, but it feels terribly unjust. And the easy and even glib way many of our teachers and historians wave airy hands of dismissal in Burr's direction does rankle however, to say nothing of the ongoing worship of The Sage, also airy, also unscrutinized. Roger Kennedy has created a thoughtful, witty, outraged response to all that.

The author has amassed a lot of detail about primary figures in the early history of the United States. A fascinating read by a guy who's had a very diverse set of careers. By bringing out Burr's role in the early days of the USA the author has really made those times live again. Since many of us are taught canards in school- that Burr was a baddie and that Jefferson was a saint, it becomes very difficult to have much understanding of the finer points of early US history, this book is an antidote. By using evidence of his subject's character, the author is able to flesh out intent behind action. Occasionally the sentence structure is a bit complex but he's making sure you're getting your money's worth. A lovely passage describing the upper Mississippi river valley shows the author's ability to paint pictures of the natural world as well as that of human society. From Forrest McDonald's biography of Alexander Hamilton I always felt like I had a pretty good feel for the last 25 years of the 18th century and how my country was put together. After learning about the often dismissed alter ego of Hamilton, I have a much better feel for the personality and character of the principle individuals involved. As a principle elucidator and salesman for the Constituition and George Washington's right hand man we can give Hamilton a lot of credit for the strength and character of this nation, but it was Aaron Burr and those like him, the unique American type possesed of a certain wiliness and strength of character, that were the raw material it was formed out of.

While I truly enjoy the WoT books, I have to say this was a "Show me the money" book by TOR. The information in the book was primarlily a rehash of things readers discover or can infer through reading the series. In other words, for those that have read the complete series up to the date of this book there was not a whole lot of new information. For those that are just starting the WoT series, this book could spoil a lot of the suprises. I also have to admit that I thought the art was terrible and question wheter the artist even read the series.

On the plus side, the Guide provides a handy reference for hard core WoT fans. It also provides a number of maps that the books have lacked.

I would suggest buying this only after you have completed reading the series up to book 8 and have read the short story in "Legends." This is a good reference book to have if your re-reading the series or just trying to pass the time until the next book is out.

For all of the Jordan fans who are having trouble waiting for the '98 release of 'The Path of Daggers' (Book 8 in The Wheel of Time), this book may have been thought to be something that would hold you're attention. Put simply, it won't. If you're a big Jordan fan, you'll have to buy it, simply to say that you have the complete collection, but it will be a case of reading it once and then storing it on the shelf for ever more, for there is little that hasn't either been mentioned before or alluded to. Highlights of the book are the maps from the previous seven novels reproduced in large scale on glossy art paper, and the seven double page spreads of Darrell Sweet's artwork from the novels. I kid you not, after seeing the rest of the artwork in this book, you will never complain about Darrell's covers again - in fact, you will most likely wish that they had asked him to do all the artwork for the book. On the text side, the section on the Second Dragon and the rise of Artur Hawkwing is the highlight of the book, for there is little else that won't leave you feeling cheated, as in some instances, the author's have even omitted things already revealed in the books. They have even ignored the opportunity in include the short piece 'The Strike at Shayol Ghul' in this book, instead leaving it available to the few who visit the Publisher's web site. It would seem what the publishers have done is basically taken whatever background notes Jordan has been writing as he creates, try to update then to allow for some of the things that have been revealed, make it sound like this is some unknown historian from Rand Al'Thor's time that is writing it (and incidently, at the time this historian wrote this book, Illian was still under the control of the Forsaken Sammael), and jammed it all in a quick book designed to do little more than cash in on the series popularity. About the only really interesting clue I found in the book (relating to the yet unreleased Book 8) is the quote at the very start of the chapter on the Seanchan, which to my mind alludes to the title of the new book fairly implicitly. On the whole, I WOULD recommend this book to anyone who asked, but I'd qualify that by telling them not to get their hopes up or to expect any surprise revelations

I must say, being a fan of Robert Jordan, that the information in this book was invaluable as well as enlightening. It contained more detailed information on such things as the Age of Legends than was in the actual series, and gave background on many otherwise bleak details. However, I would not recommend buying this book for the art it contains, of which I had high expectations and was fairly disappointed in. Granted that the artists idea of such creatures as mydraal and ogier, for example, will conflict with my own ideas. I do regret to say that the actual quality of the art was lacking. It looked to have been done quite quickly and with haste. Overall, however, the book was very well done and deserves 5+ stars for its content, and 3 stars for the artwork. It is definitely something to buy if you can just get past the art.

Much has been written below about Amis's Night Train, and it's interesting to see so many divergent opinions about a single book. I wish only to broach a couple of subjects, rather than give my overall impression of the book (I've reviewed it elsewhere).

First, to address the complaint that NT isn't good detective fiction. One writer complained that Amis has failed at detective fiction and should go back to writing modern fiction. Night Train *is* modern fiction. Amis has adopted the voice of noir fiction to tell another of his typically post-modern stories. The bulk of Amis's work is both satirical and thought-provoking. Night Train doesn't stray from this pre-established territory. If the reader is angered because NT's ending is something other than concrete, because things unraveled instead of being compartmentalized and shunted into pretty, neat, explainable bundles, then he or she has simply chosen the wrong book to read and should probably have picked up Elmore Leonard's latest instead. That doesn't mean Amis was unsuccessful in his endeavor.

Second, as to the complaint that the crime remains unsolved: bollocks. I think a close reading (you cannot successfully read this book thinking it to be a simple detective story)reveals that Amis is again satirizing modern society. I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember the essence of parts which discuss the following idea: in an are where motiveless murder is so common as to be mundane, what (area of crime, if you will) does that leave unexplored? Motiveless suicide. I'm oversimplifying what Amis wrote for the sake of brevity, but the seadlings for your own thought are certainly planted within those pages. I'll agree that the ending is somewhat nebulous. Many of Amis's are, I believe because he makes great efforts to avoid hackneyed, cliched writing, and so many endings are typically hackneyed, cliched; try appreciating his ending to his latest short story in the NYer, "The Janitor on Mars," what a bizarre, but similarly provocative little piece of work that is.

Having said all this, I can only give the book three stars for the simple reason that if I gave it more, what would I give to London Fields or the Rachel Papers?

Cheers!

An admirable exercise, but an ultimately unsatisfying read. Nevertheless, a strong narrative voice and a few red herrings meant that I read the middle section of it quickly. It was just the beginning and the end that dragged when the narrator spent so much time telling me again and again that there was no murderer to catch. An effort to salvage the "mystery" of the novel via a couple of sardonic messages from the corpse to her erstwhile friend feel like a half-hearted attempt tacked on at the last minute. A friend and I bought it the same night and both concluded that it's a book we dedicated bibliophiles wouldn't mind lending to someone who'll never return it. Sorry, Mr. Amis, but this is a train we don't mind missing.

Crime novels are my "thing". I devour them. Once I pick a good one up, I simply CANNOT put it down. So, in the best interest of my cluttered house, I decided to pick up the adio version of Night Train and "listen" to a good book while actually getting some work done. From the first words of spoken text - "I am a police" - I was hooked. And it only got better! The story is the first person account of "the worst" case ever encountered by Detective Mike Hoolihan. She's an imposing woman ( "I'm 5'10", I go 180.") with a deep voice "further deepened by three decades of nicotine abuse," "rural features" and dyed-blonde hair. She's anything but demure and craves justice, heavy-handed justice, at her own strong hands! When the perfect daughter of her mentor and father figure turns up dead in what seems an open and shut suicide, Mike is ready to "put the case down." But Colonel T! om, the young woman's father, refuses to believe his daughter wanted to die and asks Mike to investigate. Hamilton's voice, rich and smooth like fresh honey, urges us through not only every step of the investigation, but into the soul of Mike Hoolihan. The mental picture created by the words of Martin Amis of this most brash and menacing character, with all her imperfections and vices, slowly becomes a fragile soul, wounded and taunted by the evils in her world with the skilled touch of Linda Hamilton. The narrator, with the perfect deep, throaty voice for the character, brings a realism to the character that I feel would have certainly been lost on me had I chosen to read the book myself. Through the twists and turns of her investigation, Mike learns that her friend's daughter had everything she could possibly want. What she could not bring herself to understand, in her highly intelligent mind, was the confusion and chaos of the rest of the world around her. ! I enjoyed the audibook for its realism. The characters! , mainly Mike Hoolihan, were complex and not always logical; none of their lives were perfect; the victim's suicide seemed completely senseless; and we never get a clear answer as to why it happened. At first I was disappointed that I was not given closure to the situation. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we rarely ever do get closure to something like this. A recent accidental death in my own family made me realize that we can never truly understand the world we live in or anyone else that occupies it. So Amis left me with the reality that Mike Hoolihan did her best. She ran a thorough investigation, learned what she could, and eventually had to come to terms with the fact that there was no solution or logic that prevailed. And in the process she was able to confront her own demons and edge a little closer to coming to terms with her own existence. But for me, the most captivating aspect of the tape was the voice of Linda Hamilton. Not on! ly was she the perfect choice for the voice of Mike Hoolihan, but her considerable talents as an actress came across as clearly on tape as if she were visible to the eye. I swear I could see facial expressions and gestures through her voice alone! Congratulations to Mr. Amis on a fine piece of work, and an extraordinary choice of a narrator!

Check the source material...

He quotes books of his own he hasn't written yet...boxes in archives that don't exist, etc.

Anyone who takes this book seriously doesn't know much about Napoleonic history and anyone who buys it is wating their money.

This is a very well written book with lots of interesting new ideas about the Waterloo Campaign of 1815 and a broad perspective that goes beyond the usual British and French-centered approach. Unfortunately the author tries too hard to find controversy and unjustly besmirches the reputation of some good 19th-century historians. But the real - and ultimately fatal - flaw in this book is the inaccurate source notes. In the course of my own research I have checked most of the footnotes and found that very frequently the sources cited by the author are either not related to the issue in the text (and thus do not provide evidence to support the author's allegations) or - even worse - they actually say the opposite of what he has claimed. Such unreliable footnoting greatly reduces the book's usefulness, since you can't be sure if the author actually has any evidence to back his "new perspectives." This is a shame, because the book is a good read and does offer new ideas. I think the book was very hastily written to meet a deadline, and I hope that someday the author prepares a new, carefully revised edition with accurate footnotes. If I could trust what he was saying, I would change my review from two stars to five.

I found Hamilton-Williams' book to be most enlightening, despite certain flaws in its source material. To my knowledge, and I may be incorrect, Waterloo: New Perspectives was among the first english-language books to seriously challenge the long-held notion that the British defeated Napoleon at Mont St. Jean. Simply by challenging the status quo, well-founded or not, Hamilton-Williams appears to have made the battle of la Belle Alliance once again an issue of intense controversy. Whether "meticulously researched" or not, I remain in doubt as to whether subsequent works on the battle emphasizing the Dutch, German and Prussian roles would ever have been written. As for the account itself, it seems well-enough written work, and very informative in areas where citation is not so necessary, such as the depictions of the musket smoke clouding the battlefield, and descriptions of the horrors of receiving artillery fire. The general narrative is also good, especially regarding the Prussians' travails.