This is a great sequel to Prey. Henry Lightstone and his buddies turn it up a notch and get a little bit tougher in this book. Goddard is such a great writer he brings the reader right into the moment. I felt like I was right there with the characters at every moment.

Brings up some very good and relevant topics, but with a 1995 publish date, it is out of date. This is especially true with Windows 95 Client. It would be nice to see a newer version, but probably not likely with W98 coming out.

A fairly decent book that is geared more for the first time renter. Good list of resources in the appendix. Definetly a funny book.

Winter Hikes is a useful guide for all seasons. For the most part, the only thing that makes the hikes in this book "winter hikes" is their elevation. In reality the hikes in this book are enjoyable all year.

The summary information provided with each hike includes the distances, estimates trip time, trail type and other useful information such as the potential avalanche danger on the trail. It also includes the starting elevation and elevation gain of the trail so you can judge the potential for encountering snow.

The rating system takes some getting used to. Since many of the trails are in the lower elevations, don't expect jaw dropping views at every turn. Even highly rated trails will spend a lot of time in the woods.

Although I have said this guide is useful year-round, I think it is best for 3 season hiking. During the summer you should use other guides that provide better coverage of the high elevation trails.

This terrific book features drawings and thumbnail descriptions of a wide variety of jungle denizens from insects to large mammals. Then on succeeding pages are drawings of the jungle habitat with the same animals hidden in various degrees. Searching out these naturally camoflaged critters kept my grand-daughter entertained for hours and we both learned a lot about the lives of these exotic species.

This book has twelve different activities to complete studying woods and meadows. It contains simple projects that allow children to develop observation and recording skills. The projects can be expanded by adding additional reference books. It has some great ideas if you need some ideas for outdoor studies.

Mary Crow carries with her the turbulent memories of her childhood following the brutal rape and murder of her mother. However, Mary's tough spirit lives on and in adult years she becomes an assistant DA. After her sixth conviction, a man who committed rape and murder, Mary and two of her friends set out on a camping trip on Mary's old home turf, only to find they become the predators of two violent men. The story contained among these pages is filled with suspense and keeps the reader riveted to their seat from start to finish. Lock the doors, pull down the shades and turn up the lights; it is the type of book that will keep you reading well into the night.

I loved this book!! This is one of those "can't put down until you finish" books! I was up until 2:00 a.m. on a Wednesday work night because I couldn't wait to see how the women got out of the impossible circumstances they were each in. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery and the fact that the action isn't measured out in little doses but just slaps you right in the face! I'm hoping the reason "the murder" was left unsolved is because there will be a sequel. I like this author so much I scoured the Internet hoping for other novels and was disappointed to find this was her first. I would like to read more about the characters DA Mary Crow and Jonathan Walkingstick.

This is the story of a camping trip gone wrong in the mountains on the North Carolina Tennessee border. Mary Crow and her two friends Alex and Joan are getting away from it all for the weekend by returning to Mary's childhood home. No sooner do they reach their destination than they're attacked by a deranged backwoodsman who kidnaps one of the women. The story then takes on a hunted becomes the hunter, who in turn is also being hunted, line, for while Mary is chasing the kidnapper, she is also being stalked by another man who is intent on exacting a revenge of his own.

This is Sallie Bissell's debut novel and it is one of the most suspenseful books I have read in a long time. As the story was nearing the climax, I actually realised that I was holding my breath and reading it out of the corner of my eye (a bit like not wanting to watch the scary parts of a movie, I suppose). This book is highly recommended, no I'll go further than that, it's one of the best suspense novels I've read in the last 5 years (there, now you've got to read it, don't you).

I was disappointed in this latest novel by Nicholas Evans because it was nowhere as good a story as his two previous novels, The Horse Whisperer and The Loop. I am angry because this had the makings of a "great" book and ended up being nothing more than a longer version of a Nicholas Sparks' novel. And, don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good Nicholas Sparks' book but not when I'm supposed to be reading a Nicholas Evans' book.

Set in Missoula, Montana and inspired by real life smoke jumpers, this book follows the lives of its three main characters Ed Tully, Connor Ford and Julia Bishop over a period of about ten years. Ed and Connor are best friends brought together by their love of life and interest in "smoke jumping." Ed is exuberant in nature while Connor is reserved yet they both complement each other. Julia is Ed's girlfriend and she will become another thing in which the two men share an interest. This will become a book about choices with loyalty and friendship being at its core.

Prior to this reading, I had no idea what a smoke jumper was and found out that there are only 400 of them in America. This is one of the reasons I always gravitate towards Evans' books - I always learn something from them. In The Horse Whisperer, I learned that people COULD talk to horses. In The Loop, I learned that the wolf is an endangered species and people invent elaborate traps in which to catch them. In The Smoke Jumper, I learned that these jumpers parachute out of planes into "fire areas" and have devised incredible ways of fighting and starving fires.

For the first 100 pages, I loved this book until it became a predictable love triangle. Girl meets boy, girl meets boy's friend, girl is attracted to friend, girl feels obligated to boy, tragedy strikes boy and girl until it becomes like every other book of this type that I've read. I enjoyed the beginning, which had to do with the fires, and the wilderness and the program for which Julia worked whereby they brought troubled teens into the open country and helped them find themselves. Once tragedy struck on the mountain, the whole emphasis of the book shifted to the point where some portions were not even plausible. If only the storyline would have continued in the smoke jumper direction, I would have been happy but, in the off-season, Connor is a photographer and spends his time taking pictures of atrocities in third world countries such as Bosnia and Uganda. This book then becomes a convoluted tapestry of puzzle pieces that the reader should be putting together along the way as the main characters strive to find some kind of happiness in their lives. Once the setting shifted from Montana to Africa, I lost interest and found everything from that point on just plain boring and unbelievable to say the least.

There are very few heroes in the world and this book had the ability to create a fictional one yet it failed, in my opinion, because so many of the choices made by the main characters were downright "stupid". Since the fires that the smoke jumpers put out are very damaging, they are also cleansing in that new growth will eventually appear. I'm sure this was probably the moral of the story but Connor's stint in Africa left me begging to get back on U.S. soil so this new growth could begin. While the characters in the end might have finally found self-fulfillment, this reader certainly didn't.

Having read some reviews prior to reading the Smoke Jumper I was prepared for the worst. Lucky we all have different tastes, how boring if we all thought the same because I enjoyed Nicholas Evans latest tale.
The Smoke Jumper certainly holds up with the best for a good portion of the book. The relationship between Ed, Julia and Connor is one of true friendship and the difficulties they all faced and how they dealt with them after the fire was truely sad.
Connor's exploits after were a little disjointed, or should I say the telling of them didn't sit well. But, this was a life story by Nicholas Evans and life doesn't flow along evenly either.
Yes, parts of the african theme weren't needed but then it's part of this story.
Overall, a good read by Nicholas Evans. Yes! I have to say a worthwhile read.

This is most of all a well-told tale of love, friendship, tragedy and triumph. Not new material at all: a love-triangle, a friendship that is challenged by disaster and love for the same woman, the adversities of life and finally fate working in a good way after all.

Since the "horse-whisperer" we know that Mr. Evans is a solid story-teller and takes his time to develop the lead characters. For this he spends the first half of the story on the beginnings of Ed's and Connor's friendship as smoke jumpers in Montana. At the same time he introduces us to Julia who is the central love interest. After a climactic forest fire there is a scissure in the story that I believe is well-placed. Just as the lives of these 3 people are changed dramatically, so are the pace and the main storylines of the book. Evans pulls this off, though, because his characters and settings are well-developed by his groundwork in the first half of the novel.

The book is an overall very good weekend, page-turner read.
Less one star for it is predictable after all.

This is making me sick! It seems every series the GW has written under VC's precious name is filled with blank, unintelligent and boring characters. Willow was alright in the first book. She wasn't too whiny and she would do things even if others didn't agree with her. But this book was horrible. Willow turned into a judgemental little brat! She thought she was so much better than everyone else. For a psychiatrist who is supposed to "understand" people, she sure doesn't do a good job here. She claims that everyone in Palm Beach is too shallow, blah, blah, blah. She also seemed very vapid and unintelligent. And Thatcher, who I was suspicious of from the beginning, turned out to be even worse than I imagined. His character changed as well. The Palm Beach ladies are all - of course - shallow and materialistic. Does the GW seem to think that his "heriones" live in a world where everyone else is walking around with no problems other than what to buy on their next shopping spree? Every character and plot of his seems to be the same recycled blah in every book he writes! Instead of following a "pattern" he should think of a new storyline and work off that instead of trying to copy old ideas. It's a good thing I didn't buy this book, for I'll never read it again.

I am a true die hard fan of V.C. Andrews, the real one that is, not the fake and unoriginal ghostwriter they got churning out her stories now. In the begining he did a pretty good job but after the Landry series everything kinda went downhill, even so, I had high hopes for his new series though I should have predicted that when the De Beers series came out it would be just as pointless and predictable as his other mangled attempts at writing. But, to give the devil his due (as the Ghostwriter says at least a hundred times in this book and his others) the De Beers series doesn't stink nearly as much as the Hudson series or even worse the Shooting Stars and Orphan series which gave a whole new meaning to the term Horror Fiction. I didn't like the first book in this series but this book wasn't so bad. That's probably the most I can say about it. I didn't really like Willow as a character. Sure, she's not as wimpy as the GW's other heriones (BIG PLUS) but she really came across as cold and annonyingly over analyical to me (HUGE MINUS). She's always critizing and finding fault with other people. According to Willow, everyone in Palm Beach but her was hopelessy snobby and flawed in someway. I though she could have been a little less of a jerk to Marjorie and the rest of the Club Florette(?) too. In their own way they were only trying to help her out. Also I though the way she talked to her dead father was downright creepy!!! Don't get me wrong, I can understand talking to someone you love and miss after they die and all but having them talk back was a little bit too much for me. And another thing, for someone who wanted to be a pyschologist Willow was in complete denial of how crazy and screwed up her half brother Linden was. I mean, when he went all psycho at the end she totally should have seen that coming. This book was ok, (even if the ending was a little rushed) and I'll continue to buy the rest of the series if for no other reason than to add to my collection of V.C Andrews books. Happy Reading All !!!!

I have been trying to kick the VCA habit for years (I'm 35). I'm proud to say that I quit the miniseries a couple of years ago, but am still reading the full-size book series. The ghostwriter must be reading these reviews, because the DeBeers series shows an improvement that I hope will last. A problem of the books that came after the Casteel series has been that the young protagonists are too "wide-eyed" for someone living in the 21st or late-20th centuries. Young people have sharpness, and Willow seems more modern than Rain Hudson or Dawn Cutler. The dialogue has also become sharper and pithier, which was sorely needed! Linden Montgomery is definitely the best "unstable brother" in ages!

This short novel begins with a 1764 setting in the forests of central Ohio (near present-day Coshocton, Ohio) at the junction of the Muskingum, the Tuscarawas, and the Waldhoning Rivers. The book presents a somewhat romanticized picture of the American Indian at that time. The central character is John Cameron Butler, known as True Son in the Delaware tribe with which he has lived since he was four years old. He is now fifteen and his life is being uprooted once again. The Indians have signed a treaty in which they have to return all white captives to their original families, even those who don't wish to go. All John knows is his life as an Indian and now he has to return to the family (in Paxton, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River) he hasn't seen for eleven years. But, he doesn't fit in there and he finds himself caught between two cultures. Although very well written, it appears that Richter is suggesting that Indian/colonists interactions were doomed from the very beginning. One culture had to win and one had to lose. He presents the case where neither culture appeared willing to tolerate nor to understand the other. And, in more general terms, in my opinion Richter seems to hint that all such cultural conflicts are fated to fail. This is a rather sad commentary on man. I certainly hope it is not true and that there are good chances for Serb/Albanian, Irish/English, Indian/Pakistani, etc., interactions. This book is often used in reading assignments for students ranging from ages eleven through fourteen. I find it also a depressing thought that such a dark vision of man's capacity for tolerance and understanding is being presented to young, impressionable minds. I would have hoped that teachers in the 1990s would have found literary sources with a less negative outlook. It would appear that some of the negative reviews provided by earlier, and much younger, readers have some validity.

'The Light in The Forest' is a book about a young White boy from 18th century America who was born as a "frontier child" but was then stolen by Indians when very young and brought up as an Indian for ten years. His Indian name is True Son, and his white name is John Butler. When he is about 15 years old, he is forced to go back and live with his real White family. He is devastated because he was brought up to hate the Whites, and now he is being forced to live with them and to practice their culture. At first True Son refuses to comply at all with the Whites and tries to escape. After a while, and after spending much time with the Whites though, it seems that True Son is beginning to accept and become used to their culture, and is starting to lose his Indian ways. It looks as if all of the Indian in him has been run over and destroyed, when one night, he finds his old Indian friend / cousin and escapes with him from the Whites to a long journey back home to his old Indian town. It seems now that all the Indian he left behind has been renewed to him and most of what the whites forced into his head is gone when, with little warning, True Son must make a life-altering decision that will decide his fate, and that will decide what culture he is to live with.

I really enjoyed this book; it showed the conflict between whites and Indians in 18th century America very well. It was filled with action and adventure, and although short, it still developed the characters and the plot so that you had a broad understanding of what kind of decisions this young man had to make, how it must have been like being bounced from culture to culture (especially in that day), and how hard things must have been in general. This understanding of the character is what keeps you reading and keeps you itching to find out where fate will put John Butler/ True Son. I would recommend this book because of these reasons, and because of the way the author attacked the overlying conflict between Whites and Indians: he spoke of it from both the White's and the Indian's sides. Because of this the reader can understand the conflict from both sides, and can not easily pick a side to support, which made things interesting. Lastly, in my opinion, this book is quite unpredictable, and you can't tell how it will complete itself until the very end, which made the book more fun to read. If you enjoy history, and adventure you will probably enjoy this book.

A Light In The Forest centers around a fifteen-year-old boy named True Son, who lived with the Lenni Lenape for eleven years, ever since the Indians had captured him during an attack on a farm. He was adopted by Cuyloga and Quaquenga, a family of the Lenni Lenape, and became one of them.
One day, his village learns that all white prisoners must be returned to their birth families, and his father takes him to the camp of soldiers that will take True Son to Pennsylvania. True Son's experiences in an English town and his desire to return to his village are the storyline of the book. This book is appropriate for eight graders, though the author, Conrad Richter, portrays some scenes almost too vividly. Children who have been in a divorce situation can relate to True Son and his feelings of abandonment. The book does an excellent job of informing readers of how the English and the Indians viewed each other, and gives the reader the unique viewpoint of True Son. For entertainment, the book falls a little short, occasionally losing your attention by attempting to summarize events without going into any detail. Overall, the book is not a bad read, and would be especially enjoyable if you like historic novels from this period.