Utterly absorbing to the final terrifying climax

From the beginning, Gabrielle’s voice, bitter, but determined after a life-decimating accident, pulls you deep into the unstoppable unspooling of disaster. A remarkable piece of writing, tension building slowly at first until it hurtles towards the earth-shattering conclusion. At the centre of it all is Bethany, a foul-mouthed teenage killer and prophet.

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Brilliantly Read & a Different Story

What I love most about this audiobook is the brilliant narration - she brings this book to life. The story is interesting if a little dystopian & I was left wondering what would go on to happen to the characters after the book had ended. I've listened to this a few times now, even though I know the ending & I still find something new in it. Recommended if you can suspend belief & just go with the unusual story.

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3 people found this helpful

An enthralling listen.

Any additional comments?

This bears a few similarities to another Liz Jensen book - The Uninvited and it's another chillingly, gripping listen. Reccomended.

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2 people found this helpful

5 stars for book/narration - 0 stars for editing

India Fisher did a great job lending the leading characters not only a voice - she brings Jensens enthralling story to life!

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2 people found this helpful

Religion, Mental Health and Armageddon!

I thought this would be a run of the mill thriller, but it was so much more. A psychologist with a past arrives at a mental institution for criminally insane children. Her new patient, Bethany, seems to be able to predict natural disasters. Can she really foresee them, or is the psychologist not as stable as she seems?

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2 people found this helpful

Totally gripping.

I was completely engrossed in this book, which I listened to from Audible. The book I was supposed to be reading for a book group was only half read by the day of the discussion and I was looking for jobs around the house that I could do with my headphones on!!

Unfortunately a couple of niggling annoyances left it as a 4 1/2 star read. Firstly the constant reference to Frazer Melville rather than Frazer - who uses their whole name all the time? References to him as 'The Physicist' weren't much better. In addition I cringed at the repetition of the lengthy Spanish (Portugese?) phrase related to the painting in Gabrielle's house.

Gabrielle Fox is an Art Therapist on the rebound from a crippling accident that has left her confined to a wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down. This leaves her very vulnerable when she is confronted by Bethany Crawl, a psychotic teenager who killed her own mother by repeartedly stabbing her with a screwdriver. Gabrielle makes a noble attempt to behave professionally with Bethany but the teenager is wise to all the 'psychobabble' and soon sees through her.
Bethany claims to be able to predict environmental disasters and when she is repeatedly correct it becomes more and more difficult to fob it off as coincidence.

The only date that I spotted as I listened to the book was 2012, a date that has been linked to current apocalyptic predictions, making the book even more topical. In addition there is a love interest, in the person of Frazer Melville and a Christian viewpoint, depicted as the Faith Wave, whose members believe the increase in catastrophic events heralds The Rature, when they will be whisked off to heaven and non-believers will be left to suffer.

I couldn't predict how the author was going to end the book but I thought it was spot on.
It's a shame that many people have not enjoyed it so much and it does have its flaws but I'd recommend it without hesitation.

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1 person found this helpful

Insightful and pod suspenderas

A novel with many layers; psychological and geopolitical. And with fascinating and unusual main characters. Recommended.

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Hard work, poor reader, too much of a rant

After a promising start I couln't finish this book, the reader is poor, and the subject matter far too silly to be worth the bother. Too much of a sermon regarding global warming, and not enough story, the balance is wrong for my taste. I am not a climate change denier, far from it, but this book was pants!

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8 people found this helpful

Don't bother

Sorry Audible, this is a load of tosh. I can't think when I was more disappointed by a reading or story and by the end I wondered why I'd bothered.

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2 people found this helpful

Not Enraptured

Liz Jensen is a fantastic writer, but this - probably her most successful novel to date - was a bit too "Nicci French" for me. Yes it's a page turner, yes it's got an interesting plot and a great central character. But it's also predictable, uninspired and horribly commercial. I hope it makes her lots of money so she can get back to writing the kind of stuff she does best!

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1 person found this helpful