Outside the Lines: a Novel by Amy Hatvany - Opening Sentences

Outside the Lines: A Novel by Amy Hatvany
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Release date: February 7, 2012

Opening sentences in a novel can set the tone and help readers decide about the book. Here are the opening sentences for Outside the Lines: A Novel .

The call came at three thirty in the morning, a time slot predestined for the arrival of bad news. No one calls to tell you you've won the lottery in the middle of the night. Your boyfriend doesn't call you to propose.

The shrill of my cell phone dug into my dreams and wrenched me from sleep. This is it, I thought. He's dead. Six months ago, I'd given the morgue at Seattle General my number along with a copy of a twenty-year-old picture of my father. "I don't care what time it is," I told the hospital administrator. "If he turns up, I'll come right away." (p. 1)

Publisher's description: "When Eden was ten years old she found her father, David, bleeding out on the bathroom floor. The suicide attempt led to her parents’ divorce, and David all but vanished from Eden’s life. Since childhood, she has heard from him only rarely, just enough to know he’s been living on the streets and struggling with mental illness. But lately, there has been no word at all.

Now in her thirties, Eden decides to go look for her father, so she can forgive him at last, and finally move forward. When her search uncovers other painful truths—not only the secrets her mother has kept from her, but also the agonizing question of whether David, after all these years, even wants to be found—Eden is forced to decide just how far she’ll go in the name of love."

About the author: Amy Hatvany is the author of three other novels, including Best Kept Secret. She lives in Seattle with her family.

Book Review: The Look of Love by Mary Jane Clark

She ... scrolled her BlackBerry to where she could reread the Facebook message.

"Saw the cake you made for Glenna Brooks. Would love it if you would do one for my wedding on January 15. We'll pay for your plane ticket, put you up for the week at Elysium, provide you with a car and driver, and, of course, pay for the cake. Let me know ASAP if you are interested!"

Jillian Abernathy. The name was vaguely familiar. (ch. 1)

Title: The Look of Love: A Piper Donovan Mystery
Hardcover: 352 pages; William Morrow
Release date: January 17, 2012)

So begins cake maker Piper Donovan's escape from Manhattan to Los Angeles and to an exclusive spa in the Hollywood Hills, courtesy of Jillian Abernathy, a wealthy client who wants Piper to make a wedding cake for her nuptials at Elysium, the high-end spa she is director of and which her father owns. The work-and-vacation trip to LA turns out to be anything but relaxing for Piper, however.

A housekeeper, Esperanza, is disfigured when acid is thrown into her face by someone who thought the housekeeper was Jillian. Someone either doesn't want the marriage to happen or is seeking revenge against Elysium by trying to harm Jillian.

With two murders and more scares for Jillian later on, Piper is urged by her parents and by her boyfriend, FBI agent Jack Lombardi, to return to New York and extricate herself from the scary mess that the planned wedding has become.

But Piper is also attending try-outs for TV commercials in Hollywood, and her long-held dreams of becoming an actress keep her in LA and at Elysium. She soon becomes friendly with other clients at the spa and discovers more unsavory things at Elysium. She is pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery.

I gave this easy to read and enjoyable novel a 4/5 rating. The book has interesting characters and tidbits of information about LA, including the real life Monastery of the Angels, a religious institution in the Hollywood Hills famous for its homemade pumpkin bread.

Author: New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark is currently taking cake-decorating classes, as she works on her next novel. Her mother made customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when Mary Jane was growing up.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Book Review: The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb

"Honey!" he said, touching her trembling back while squelching the desire to shout. I was preyed upon, dammit! I was ambushed by a miserable creature who used the traction of a single kiss to try to wound both of us! That's the truth! (ch. 18)

The Face Thief: A Novel by Eli Gottlieb
William Morrow; Hardcover, 256 pages; Jan. 17, 2012
Genre: literary novel, suspense
Objective rating: 4.5/5

Margot Lassiter, a young magazine journalist, wakes up slowly in the hospital, not rememering much about the fall down a long marble staircase that caused serious head injury and partial amnesia. Had she been pushed? Detective Dan France visits her regularly to try to find out. He also is looking closely into her life before her injury. As she lies in the hospital recovering, Margot remembers her childhood and the influences on her life.

Flashback to Lawrence Billings, a psychologist who gives seminars on face reading, body language and how to use this to advantage in the business world. Margot is one of the attendees at a seminar, and she insists on taking private lessons from Lawrence so she can have improve her skills in business dealings. But it turns out that Margot is the master, not Lawrence,and she is able to manipulate him with her own body language and her sharp ability to read his. "Men speak a stench," she often thinks, and she can sniff them out expertly.

Flashback again to another man, 42-year-old John Potash, a happily married man, comfortably well off, who is persuaded by telemarketer Janelle Styles from Greenleaf Financial to look into investments with her company in the newest green technology. He meets her and her partners and is convinced that he would make a mint by investing almost all of his savings, his wife's savings, and his mother's.

The three stories converge in the novel to create a suspenseful tale of psychology and manipulation. The men - Dan the detective, Lawrence the psychologist and face reading specialist, and John the investor - are no match for Margot, who reads them easily. When Margot recovers and leaves the hospital, the men try to minimize the damages done to their marriages and self esteem.

I wished that the book had gone into more detail about face reading, but it didn't except for when Lawrence gives a few tips in his seminars. A jagged hairline could mean some traumatic experience in the teenage years, shape of the upper or lower lip could show either a sensual or pleasure denying bent, extra plumpness on the lower cheeks around the mouth could mean lots of energy. Large ears low on the head would make the person thoughtful and deliberate; a cleft chin would mean a big ego....and so forth.

The Face Thief made me think of how often people I know or I myself put on a face or attitude that didn't reveal true feelings. It certainly will make me more observant of body language and face characteristics. Not that this novel is all negative...There is at least one innocent, goodhearted man in the book, and at least three good women. None of them are Margot.

A fascinating book that is both a literary and a suspense novel. I am anxious to read the author's other novel, Now You See Him, which also got good reviews.

About the author: Eli Gottlieb’s New York Times Notable Book, The Boy Who Went Away, won the Rome Prize and the 1998 McKitterick Prize from the British Society of Authors. His second novel, Now You See Him, has been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New York City.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission