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Sanctuary (Nova Audio Books)
written by Nora Roberts
Studio : Nova Audio Books
by Nova Audio Books
Release Date : 1997-04-01
Publisher : Nova Audio Books
Released : 1997-04-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 2
EAN : 9781561009671
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 71 reviews)
List Price : $16.95
Our Price : $6.49
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Product Description |
Successful photographer Jo Ellen Hathaway thought she had escaped the house long ago. It was where she spent her loneliest years, after her family was shattered by the sudden, unexplained disappearance of her mother.
But now, the sprawling resort off the coast of Georgia haunts her dreams. Even more haunting are the pictures that someone is sending her - strange close-ups, candid shots, and finally, the most shocking and heartbreaking portrait of all: a photograph of her long-lost mother. . . naked, beautiful, and dead.
Jo realizes that it's time to return to Sanctuary. The island inn, still run by her estranged family, brings back painful memories and the troubled relationships she struggled so hard to escape and forget. But it seems that her stalker can even breach the safety of this tiny island, where everybody knows everybody - or thinks they do. And Sanctuary may be the most dangerous place of all. |
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Nora Roberts at her best! |
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Jo Ellen, a reknown photographer has returned to her home after recieving several photos that contained the image of her missing mother. Determined to center herself, Jo has returned to the one place where she feels safe, Sanctuary. While returning to her roots makes her reflect on one of the most painful times in her life (her mother's disappearance) she finds love, in a childhood friend, Nathan. Surrounded by her siblings, a brother who has turned to cooking and a sister, who wants to be an actress and a father, who is extremely bitter, Jo realizes that she is being stalked and that her mother's disappearance may not be what it initially seemed and that her new love, Nathan may have information that will destroy her world. I enjoyed this novel, although I don't think you will be surprised by the ending, and would recommend that you read it if you like traditional Nora Roberts (romance, suspense and mystery). |
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Sanctuary??? |
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What a Sanctuary!!!Where damaged people live and rape and murder going on. I had started this book and had the TV on Lifetime and lo and behold the Lifetime movie was Sanctuary. Okay so I watched it and not impressed but decided to finish the book. The book is tons better than the movie. However I had to skim the murder/rape scenes. Okay so I'm sqimmish! I'm wondering how many books can have this same scenario of the damaged people because their parents didn't show them love and etc, so they can't love and they shove people away from them. I have read several Nora Roberts books lately with this scenario. I'm reading Hidden Riches at the moment and same scenario. I think that is why I liked her newest book "High Noon" because she got away from that formula and had 2 strong people come together. The hero could have been damaged because of his childhood but didn't let it. I like this formula much better. Getting back to Sanctuary, it's an okay read but probably not one I would read again. Yesterday Lifetime showed all of Nora Roberts movies based on her books and there was not one as good as the book. Even the actors playing the parts weren't right to me after reading the books. I wouldn't have pictured them as the movie does. The one playing Nathan in Sanctuary didn't even come close to what I pictured reading the book. There were characters left out and the Mother was murdered by Nathan's father not his brother. Well as they say, it's based on the book;that's about all!Anyway, if you have seen the movie, read the book; it's better. |
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The formula is getting old... |
I used to enjoy Nora Roberts' books for their wry humor, interesting characters, and snappy dialog. But her plots have been growing more and more formulaic: Tough, gorgeous heroine with a successful professional life and a ton of baggage obstructing her relationships is stalked by a serial killer whose acts become more and more savage as the book continues, often to the point of being ridiculously over the top. The heroine's friends and family are slowly killed off before she finally realizes what is going on, leading to a surprisingly anticlimatic finale. For me to truly consider a book a mystery, it must be a challenge to deduce the culprit. I have been able to deduce the killer's identity so early on in these books that I'm just left to focus on the romance, and though Roberts still can write one heck of a steamy passage it gels uneasily with scenes of stomach-churning brutality. As in "Blue Smoke", I found the murder scenes in "Sanctuary" to be overdone to the point of tastelessness (and Roberts seems to have an off-putting fascination with rape and quasi-rape throughout this book). I'm also not one easily satisfied with the "he was crazy, that was why he did what he did, there's no logical reason" hook that these works hang on.
It seems as if Roberts is trying to write for the broadest market possible; she is losing me as a fan in the process. |
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Extremely Disappointing |
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I had high expectations for this novel. First, it is written by my favorite author, Nora Roberts and was given a four-star rating by Americancivilwar reviewers, and second I discovered there had been a TV movie made based on this book. All this being said, I was looking forward to indulging in an excellent novel. I was gravely mistaken and very much disappointed. The story revolves around Sanctuary, a beautiful old Southern mansion (bed and breakfast) on the grounds of Little Desire Island off the coast of Georgia. Cottages inhabited by vacationers surround the main house on the island with its beautiful gardens, beaches and wooded areas. The Hathaway family own and run Sanctuary. Brian and Lexy are the resident owners, along with the help of their mother's cousin, Kate and father Sam. Jo Ellen Hathaway left the family business to make a name as a renowned photographer but as the story opens, she is getting photographs from an undisclosed source of her dead mother who disappeared some 20 years ago and the family never even thought she could have been murdered. They figured this loving wife and mother of three just walked out on them and stood by this belief, resenting and revolting in her memory. This method of guilty until proven otherwise was the first element that really didn't play right for me. Jo Ellen needs to get back to Sanctuary (after she suffers a breakdown as a result of the stalker and his photos) to try to find comfort and resolution with her family although none of them have ever been able to bond since the disappearance of their mother. The story goes on and on describing the secondary characters, Kirby Fitzsimmons (resident island doctor), Nathan Delaney (gifted architect, revisiting the island after spending one summer's childhood vacation), and Giff Verdon (island handyman) and really leads to very little action. I found that a big part of the excitement for the characters was drinking multiple cups of coffee morning, noon and night, smoking their cigarettes and relieving frustration with random sex. Two events posing undefined logic were the disappearance of everyone's fun-loving, great-to-be-with friend, Ginny - never really expounded upon and somewhat just left out on the line to dry and the reference to the questionable disappearance/death of Kyle Delaney, Nathan's brother. In this instance, Nathan and Jo Ellen start discussing the fact that possibly he could be alive and then the story drops. Even the ending didn't satisfy my need for that Nora Roberts thrill I am accustomed to enjoying. Being an avid Nora fan and knowing what great work she is capable of, I would not recommend this novel. Sanctuary could very likely turn the reader off to the extremely talented works of author, Nora Roberts, a/k/a J.D. Robb. Stories like "The Villa" and "Honest Illusions" are definitely worth reading as well as all of the J.D. Robb "In Death" series. Go out and get her latest in the series, "Innocent in Death," for a true taste of her talent. |
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Dreams Sometimes Do Come True. |
We all seek sanctuary at one time or another, from family problems, childhood fears, career woes, personal nightmares all tempt us to run away and hide. J. E.'s mother had disappeared when she was only seven years old; something she could never forgive the most important person in her young life. My mother died when I was seven, so I can relate. But there was no sanctuary for me. It was just life, and I could never forgive her for leaving me behind like Jo. She grew up feeling that she had been abandoned. Only after her dream twenty years later of returning to the empty family inn named Sanctuary on the island of Desire in Georgia, and seeing herself on the other side, did she realize that her mother was dead.
Enter the stalker in her life with the pictures to prove he sometimes was close enough to touch her elbow. One photo in particular shows her long-lost mother naked and dead. Who took that picture and when? She returns "home" seeking answers to this quandry only to discover that he had followed her there. Growing up, I'd always been told I looked like my father as I had his dark brown eyes. But, at the funeral of my maternal grandmother after I was married with three children, my kinfolk all raved about how I was the spitting image of Lettie's photo which hung over her mother's bed. Even though she had beautiful, sad blue eyes and a lighter brown hair than my dark brown, I was about the same age then as she before the cancer took her away from us. I tried for years in vain to obtain that 5X7 photo.
Jo was the image of her dead mother and she was in danger as Brian closed in for the kill. Thank God, Nathan was there to protect and save her from the evils lurking in the Sanctuary. Nora Roberts was the first writer to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Her stories keep one riveted to the page more than the mystery thrillers do. |
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