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claire-obscure (The Claire Quartet)
 
 

claire-obscure (The Claire Quartet) [Kindle Edition]

Billie Hinton
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Product Description

Lonely, unfulfilled, and envious of her best friend who has moved to Italy, Claire Caviness heads out to the same old club one night but takes a right turn out of her usual routine and meets Finn Weston, a mysterious and disturbed medical student who lures her into a folie a deux - a shared madness that forces Claire to look at the things she's tried desperately to leave behind. When Claire's friend Lucy is found dead and Finn is implicated in the murder, Raoul Duras, a Delta Force operator with a penchant for rescuing prostitutes, offers a way out of the madness. In a raw, edgy journey from trauma to restoration, Claire examines her deepest fears: grief for her distant mother and gay father, the awakening of her conflicted sexuality, and the darkness that pulls her to the intrigue and danger of two very different - and dangerous - men.

REVIEWS:

CRIME BOOK BEAT: Crime writers are generally like war correspondents, but Ms. Hinton doesn't require a flak jacket. Her writing is literate, evocative, and perceptive - even mesmerizing. Her mysteries aren't solved, they're dangled just ahead, just out of reach.

EIGHT CUTS GALLERY: I've come across some real gems on Kindle, and Billie Hinton's Claire-Obscure is one of the shiniest gems. What drew me to the book was the most primordial thing - the power of an image (and the beautiful title with its evocative double meaning), a cover that evokes the opening of Belle de Jour, and Renoir's painting Parapluies (my favourite in the whole world). I'm glad I was drawn because Billie Hinton is a wonderful writer, and Claire-Obscure a delightful, enigmatic masterpiece.

PRAISE FOR CLAIRE-OBSCURE:

"claire-obscure is sophisticated, eerie, fascinating, literary. It has a spare, sexy Duras feel and a Donna Tartt-like magnetic quality."-Peggy Payne, author of Revelation and New York Times Notable Book Sister India

"In claire-obscure, Billie Hinton creates three amazing and mysterious characters, in a fresh voice that has echoes of Donna Tartt and Sylvia Plath. Couldn't wait to see how it turned out, hated for it to end."
-Dale Edgerton, author of Goneaway Road

"Simply brilliant; a lyric dreamsong."
-J.S. Kindrick, former Special Operations soldier and author of Spirit Horses

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 550 KB
  • Print Length: 285 pages
  • Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
  • Publisher: November Hill Press; first edition (21 Aug 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004CFASCY
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #327,986 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike anything I've ever read 4 Jun 2011
Format:Kindle Edition
First, a warning: this is not a book for the faint of heart. It starts with rape that's described bluntly, though not graphically, and follows through the consequences in Claire's life.

I don't even know how to categorise this book; it's like nothing else I've ever read. It has a classic "chick lit" romance premise (one girl, two boys, a difficulty in choosing) but has nothing else in common with that genre. This may be the darkest book I've ever read, yet there's not a single scene that feels like it's been added gratuitously for 'shock' value. It feels sort of like a thriller - but although there is a dead body in suspicious circumstances, the suspense really comes from somewhere else. Whatever anyone else may do to Claire, it's arguable that what she does to herself is the most terrifying. In a way, it's a story of mental illness, though never quite named as such.

What I can say is that I read this in two sittings, staying up well after midnight because I couldn't put it down. The whole thing was just thoroughly compelling. The writing flows smoothly, in gripping present-tense narrative, and the story progresses quickly. It's not a "light" read, though - I stormed through it quickly, but it continues to challenge me after I've put the book down.
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1.0 out of 5 stars Much ado about nothing 2 May 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was attracted by the rave reviews this novel received but deeply disappointed in the reading thereof- too much hype leading to dashed expectations. It seems to me that the wearisome accounts of continuous sex and non sex take over the narrative completely, leaving a thinness of storyline. The characterisations verge on stereotypical and are reminiscent of Mills and Boon at times with the rippling muscles and calloused hands of actionman Raoul, contrasting with the cool, sinister and slightly effete medic, Finn. In fact I disliked it so much, I'm wondering now why I persevered to the end, when there are so many worthier reads out there.
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4.0 out of 5 stars A Book As Good As It's (Fabulous) Cover 3 Feb 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a great book, and exceptionally well written. It's essentially a love-triangle story, although a complex, strange, and disturbing one. In its forensic depiction of emotional states and the dark side of love, it reminded me of some of Margaret Atwood's more realistic stories - high praise. I also liked the author's obvious love of words - the word definitions that headed chapters (which was in character for Claire) and the letters to Virginia Woolf were both great touches. One slight (and I do mean slight) flaw was the central characters yo-yo-ing between two men occasionally got repetitive. But otherwise a great book - recommended to all fans of literate stories.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A novel of polarising contrasts and drama 5 Nov 2011
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Claire Obscure by Billie Hinton ~ a novel of polarised contrasts and drama.

It took me a little while to get round to reading this novel and my enjoyment of it was interrupted by the need to put it down and do some work. For someone like me who enjoys playing with words and word meanings, this was a book of great opportunities to discover hidden depths even beneath the depths the story already shows.
Primarily, for me this was a novel of dramatic contrasts, of almost Yin-Yang proportions and also of reversals, and of exploring light and dark in a remarkably elegant manner. The title itself is a give-away: Claire, meaning light or clear and Obscure, meaning dark or hidden. No one thing or character is so clear cut as to fall fully into either category. The main character Claire Caviness is enamoured of both words and contrasts, seeking to both hide and reveal herself using them. She writes letters to Virginia Woolf, that most impenetrable of early twentieth century novelists wherein she seems to be both supplicant to her writer-deity and also a challenge to her.
Claire becomes involved with two separate men, whose lives are again a mix of the secret and the daylight-plain. Finn, a trainee doctor, has a professional life that is totally open, yet his private life and his thoughts remain alarmingly hidden; in direct contrast is the second man, Raoul. His professional life as a special ops soldier is shrouded not just in secrets but in red tape: he simply is not allowed to share what he does. Yet his emotional life is laid bare, frequently, by either his own words or that of his best friend.
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