- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (29 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743219317
- ISBN-13: 978-0743219310
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.3 x 3 cm
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Synopsis
Explores one woman's journey into seduction and revenge as she attempts to adjust to life after spending twelve years in prison for the murder of her husband, but her determination to seek revenge on her husband's true killer could destroy everything around her.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
'Please' Is A Pleasure
12 Dec 2001
Format:Hardcover
Rachel Beckett has served 12 years of a life sentence for the murder of her husband. She did not commit the murder, and has been meticulously planning her revenge for these twelve miserable years when she finally receives a conditional parole.
Everything about this tale is very Irish, including the judicial system. American readers will be surprised to find Rachel was convicted by a "majority" vote of the jury, 10-2. Rachel was totally convinced she would be acquitted and made no mental preparations for a prison sentence. Her descent into the life of a penitentiary is harrowing. It was so profoundly shocking to her, I could not see her living a month. We gradually realize Rachel has an inner toughness and determination that permits her to make use of her time in prison. We know she has a well-formulated "plan," but we don't know what it is.
As Rachel's character unfolds, our admiration and apprehension increase in equal measure. We revise our picture of Rachel as a downtrodden drudge to something like Medea or La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Yet we have pity for her when she tries to re-establish a bond with her highly troubled daughter. All of the personalities are carefully drawn in depth. Not one is a stereotype, and each has a compelling part to play.
I thoroughly enjoyed this tightly plotted psychological thriller and look forward to future books by Julia Parsons.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
gripping
25 Sep 2001
Format:Hardcover
Irish psychological suspense master Julie Parsons has written another winner with "Eager to Please," her third novel. This title is sure to gain as much critical acclaim as earlier efforts "Mary, Mary" and "The Courtship Gift". "Eager to Please," just like Parsons' earlier efforts, holds the reader in its grip from the beginning.
Rachel Beckett tentatively returns to the strangeness, the joys and the loneliness of freedom after twelve years in prison. Living as an outcast, but constantly watched by her parole officer, Rachel begins to slowly pick herself up. Her seventeen-year-old daughter Amy, just like the long-ago jury, is convinced that Rachel was indeed her father's murderer.
But Rachel has had more than a decade to plan revenge. And she's learned from the best. In prison, from the outcasts and hoodlums she did time with, she's learned tricks and techniques, plotting a fantastic revenge on the real killer.
Throughout the early parts of the book, we're inside Rachel's head as she returns to life on the outside. The inner psychological drama, while deftly handled, wasn't as appealing as the fast-paced, cat-and-mouse suspense of the latter half. As the real killer and the one who went to prison for a crime she didn't commit match wits, the pages turn and the heart thumps.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Implausible, disappointing
28 Jan 2002
Format:Hardcover
I loved MARY, MARY, Julie Parsons's first novel, so much that I read it twice. Her second book, THE COURTSHIP GIFT, was a letdown. And EAGER TO PLEASE is a disappointment on almost every level -- except that of writing style, which is excellent. This book takes forever to get started; for more than 100 pages virtually no forward movement takes place. Instead, the reader is served the same backstory in several different forms, and forced to watch as Rachel, the central character, moves with little purpose through her first days after release from prison. Rachel, convicted of a murder she didn't commit, is sympathetic at first, but once she sets her revenge plot in motion -- and makes use of innocent children and their innocent mother in the process -- she becomes repugnant. Her brother-in-law Daniel, the object of her vengeful scheming, rarely does anything that makes sense. I was constantly asking, "Why on earth is the man doing that?" and was never provided with answers. And Rachel's revenge is based on such a threadbare, B-movie concept that I was disappointed by the writer's lack of imagination. MARY, MARY is also a story of revenge, but written with much more imagination and flare. Julie Parsons writes beautifully, but this is probably the last of her books I will bother to read.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
