Bloodprint by Kitty Sewell
Dec. 1st, 2009 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Fear has left its mark.
Madeleine Frank’s life is turned upside down when a natural disaster claims the life of her beloved husband. Fleeing from the Florida Keys to Bath to start afresh, Madeleine begins rebuilding her life and sets up a psychotherapy practice. But she’s unaware that another force of nature is about to sweep in ...
Rachel is one of Madeleine’s clients; a volatile, damaged woman whose dark past eerily mirrors Madeleine’s own. Their increasingly complex relationship will unleash a terrifying series of events neither woman is prepared for, which will eventually put an innocent child in great danger. Can the women survive the storm?
After losing her husband, Forrest to a hurricane in Florida, Madeleine moves to Bath and rebuilds her life. Retraining as a psychotherapist she starts her own practice and spends her spare time painting pictures of ants, dating a young archaeologist called Gordon and visiting a convicted strangler called Edward Furie in prison. On top of all this she worries about her mother, Rosaria, a Cuban Santera (magic practitioner) who’s been committed to a psychiatric institution since suffering a breakdown and being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, while her father, Neville, a famous artist, has become more irascible and angry as he gets older.
When Rachel, an emotional, cunning woman, makes an appointment to see Madeleine, it re-opens Madeleine’s memories of a dark chapter in her life. Rachel has led an awful life, the only positive thing being her son Sacha. When Rachel’s abusive ex-boyfriend tracks her down, she turns to Madeleine for help as a storm of violence breaks around them.
A thriller with supernatural overtones, this is packed with clichéd characters and equally clichéd scenarios. Madeleine is a self-absorbed, somewhat pathetic character who’s never recovered from the death of her husband in an opening scene stunning only for the stupidity that both she and he show in the face of a hurricane. Rachel is supposed to be a tragic survivor, but she is also self-interested, aggressive and her son, Sacha is used a plot device. Anton and Uri are stereotypical Eastern European thugs, Edward is a stereotypical serial killer. In fact it is never really clear why Rachel is visiting Edward other than to keep the plot moving and he comes across as a Z-list Hannibal Lecter. The only sympathetic character is John, the gay psychotherapist who pops up now and again to give Madeleine a sounding board.
The plot unfolds in such a predictable way that it makes for a dull read and while Sewell tries to spice things up with a supernatural overtone, it never really gels and seems used more to cover up gaping plot holes. It’s not a good sign when you’re rooting for the bad guys to win in the most brutal way possible and disappointed by the way things tie up in the epilogue. The tag line for the book is “the past won’t be silenced forever”, but I really wish it had been.
The Verdict:
Too clichéd to be enjoyable, I found this tedious and predictable and filled with unpleasant characters who I never cared about.
Madeleine Frank’s life is turned upside down when a natural disaster claims the life of her beloved husband. Fleeing from the Florida Keys to Bath to start afresh, Madeleine begins rebuilding her life and sets up a psychotherapy practice. But she’s unaware that another force of nature is about to sweep in ...
Rachel is one of Madeleine’s clients; a volatile, damaged woman whose dark past eerily mirrors Madeleine’s own. Their increasingly complex relationship will unleash a terrifying series of events neither woman is prepared for, which will eventually put an innocent child in great danger. Can the women survive the storm?
After losing her husband, Forrest to a hurricane in Florida, Madeleine moves to Bath and rebuilds her life. Retraining as a psychotherapist she starts her own practice and spends her spare time painting pictures of ants, dating a young archaeologist called Gordon and visiting a convicted strangler called Edward Furie in prison. On top of all this she worries about her mother, Rosaria, a Cuban Santera (magic practitioner) who’s been committed to a psychiatric institution since suffering a breakdown and being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, while her father, Neville, a famous artist, has become more irascible and angry as he gets older.
When Rachel, an emotional, cunning woman, makes an appointment to see Madeleine, it re-opens Madeleine’s memories of a dark chapter in her life. Rachel has led an awful life, the only positive thing being her son Sacha. When Rachel’s abusive ex-boyfriend tracks her down, she turns to Madeleine for help as a storm of violence breaks around them.
A thriller with supernatural overtones, this is packed with clichéd characters and equally clichéd scenarios. Madeleine is a self-absorbed, somewhat pathetic character who’s never recovered from the death of her husband in an opening scene stunning only for the stupidity that both she and he show in the face of a hurricane. Rachel is supposed to be a tragic survivor, but she is also self-interested, aggressive and her son, Sacha is used a plot device. Anton and Uri are stereotypical Eastern European thugs, Edward is a stereotypical serial killer. In fact it is never really clear why Rachel is visiting Edward other than to keep the plot moving and he comes across as a Z-list Hannibal Lecter. The only sympathetic character is John, the gay psychotherapist who pops up now and again to give Madeleine a sounding board.
The plot unfolds in such a predictable way that it makes for a dull read and while Sewell tries to spice things up with a supernatural overtone, it never really gels and seems used more to cover up gaping plot holes. It’s not a good sign when you’re rooting for the bad guys to win in the most brutal way possible and disappointed by the way things tie up in the epilogue. The tag line for the book is “the past won’t be silenced forever”, but I really wish it had been.
The Verdict:
Too clichéd to be enjoyable, I found this tedious and predictable and filled with unpleasant characters who I never cared about.
