- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins (8 May 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007115962
- ISBN-13: 978-0007115969
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,438,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Folly
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for Laurie R King:
‘A compelling, effective piece of writing’
Publishers Weekly (Night Work)
‘Brilliantly written… it is both intriguing and wholly absorbing’
T. J. Binyon, Evening Standard (Birth of a New Moon)
‘Well-written and totally gripping’
Guardian (Birth of a New Moon)
‘Pacy, skilfully layered narrative, notable for its wit, affection and unflashy know-how’
Literary Review (of With Child)
‘Original, and subtle’
Evening Standard (of To Play the Fool)
Product Description
A moving, resonant and haunting psychological suspense novel from an award-winning author.
A lonely island off the northwest coast of America. A ruined folly. A woman’s fight to reconstruct her life after the devastating loss of her husband and daughter. A threat from the past…
Rae Newborn, shattered after a catastrophic nervous breakdown and an attempted rape, is left on a deserted island off the coast of Washington State. Her aim is single-handedly to rebuild a family house destroyed by fire back in the nineteen twenties. All she wants is to be left in peace, but memories and real life intrude. Her nights are haunted by ghosts from her past and fears that the monsters lying there will return; her days interrupted by unwelcome visits from the local police and a mysterious intruder.
But her tranquillity is truly disturbed when she makes a discovery in the foundations of the house, one that throws a dark shadow over her whole family history. What really happened on the island eighty years ago? And what was the truth behind her great uncle’s disappearance after his return, shell-shocked, from the trenches of the First World War?
Violence comes down through the years to explode once again on the isolated island, this time threatening to destroy not just Rae but future generations as well…
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was already a fan of Laurie R King's books featuring detective Kate Martinelli when I came across Folly, a non-series novel. I found the book captivating as the chronicle of a woman facing her internal demons - rebuilding her life as well as a house. Even non-thriller readers would enjoy Folly as it is so well-written, within a few pages one feels a need to know what happens to Rae and if the house will rise again from the ashes.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
First Sentence: The gray-haired woman stood with her boots planted on the rocky promontory and watched what was left of her family pull away.
Rae Newborn is a woodworker whose work appears in galleries and museums. She is also a woman who has known tragedy, severe depression and attempted suicide more than once. Working to put her life back on track, Rae has come to Salvation Island to rebuild the house, known as Folly, built by her great-uncle and by fire. She is dealing with her fears after having been viciously attacked and a feeling of being watched.
Things don't improve when she finds a footprint that's not hers, learns her house in Los Angeles has been broken into and discovered a skeleton still containing the killing bullet.
This was a re-read for me and I found it as good the second time. Rae is a powerful character. In spite of her problems and past, you feel her strength and admire her self-awareness. Since the story is told in first-person, you have a real feel for her emotions and fears.
There is an interesting assortment of supporting character, including dead great-uncle Desmond, who are interesting in themselves but also act as a foil for Rae in demonstrating her determination.
I loved King's attention to detail and powers of description. Even if you've never worked with wood, anyone with a craft they love and recognition for the importance of the tools of that craft, will appreciate the descriptions of the wood her awareness of her tools.
The mystery isn't a traditional one. There is the present day mystery of whom, if anyone, is after Rae and the secondary mystery of Desmond, who came to the island with his own need to recover from shell shock after WWI.
Folly is a wonderful, emotional story and my favorite of anything King has written thus far.
Rae Newborn is a woodworker whose work appears in galleries and museums. She is also a woman who has known tragedy, severe depression and attempted suicide more than once. Working to put her life back on track, Rae has come to Salvation Island to rebuild the house, known as Folly, built by her great-uncle and by fire. She is dealing with her fears after having been viciously attacked and a feeling of being watched.
Things don't improve when she finds a footprint that's not hers, learns her house in Los Angeles has been broken into and discovered a skeleton still containing the killing bullet.
This was a re-read for me and I found it as good the second time. Rae is a powerful character. In spite of her problems and past, you feel her strength and admire her self-awareness. Since the story is told in first-person, you have a real feel for her emotions and fears.
There is an interesting assortment of supporting character, including dead great-uncle Desmond, who are interesting in themselves but also act as a foil for Rae in demonstrating her determination.
I loved King's attention to detail and powers of description. Even if you've never worked with wood, anyone with a craft they love and recognition for the importance of the tools of that craft, will appreciate the descriptions of the wood her awareness of her tools.
The mystery isn't a traditional one. There is the present day mystery of whom, if anyone, is after Rae and the secondary mystery of Desmond, who came to the island with his own need to recover from shell shock after WWI.
Folly is a wonderful, emotional story and my favorite of anything King has written thus far.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Rae Newborne inherits an island on which her great uncle had, some years previously, built a house which was destroyed by fire. After the loss of her daughter and husband and numerous breakdowns she decides to try and rebuild this 'folly' against the advice of her family, friends and psychiatrist. The book concerns her relationships on/off the island and her increasing anxiety that she is being watched.
This book is positively putdownable. It is billed as a crime/mystery/thriller novel but bar the last 20 pages it is none of these. The only mystery is why anyone should bother reading it to the end.
This book is positively putdownable. It is billed as a crime/mystery/thriller novel but bar the last 20 pages it is none of these. The only mystery is why anyone should bother reading it to the end.
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