Black Out: A Novel by Lisa Unger
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Book Summary Author: Lisa Unger Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2008-05-27 ISBN: 0307338487 Number of pages: 368 Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books |
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Book Reviews of the Black Out: A Novel
Customer Review: (4.5) "No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
Summary: 4 Stars
Unger hits a home run with this nail-biter, a story that ratchets up the sense of imminent danger with each chapter. An ordinary wife and mother, Annie Powers, is not so ordinary as she first appears. But then, neither is her husband who works in a company that does business in a post-9/11 world, Gray Powers perhaps offering his wife the unique assistance that allows a troubled young woman to create a different life after years of trauma. But this chance to start over, with Gray and daughter, Victory, on Florida's Gulf Coast isn't purchased without considerable cost. Gray's private enterprises facilitate his shielding of Annie and this is a bargain she is willing to make. Finally secure, even a little careless of late, Annie is suddenly overtaken by an eerie sense that she is being watched, that the impossible has happened and "he" has returned to claim her. She knows she is safe, that Gray has effectively erased the past, but it is all shattered in a moment in the soft repetition of a name, "Ophelia".
Tired of running, too terrified to stay, Annie is thrust into an impossible conundrum, an unbearable reality. As fragments of memories return to her consciousness, Annie relives those dark days of abandonment and humiliation, a young girl with no one to care for her, a ready victim for a crafty predator. But it must end. She must find the strength to confront her demons or die trying. In the world Unger has created for her protagonist, nothing can be taken for granted, nor is Annie the only damaged soul: the walking wounded don't always reveal their scars. Annie's story is riveting, her gradual revelations tinged with years of emotional abuse, adrift in a violent world. Beginning with a first love with serial murderer Marlowe Geary, the details of the past remain obscure, hidden in her subconscious; events conspire to reawaken the terror she has not experienced for five years, when Annie believed her long nightmare was finally over. But now someone is asking questions, she is being followed and all the precautions of wealth and family cannot protect this woman from this menace.
The cast of characters is bizarre: a sociopathic killer, seductive and deadly; a damaged girl, ready fodder for such a predator; a driven man who has seen and done too much, horrified by his own actions; a calculating, controlling father-in-law, arrogant in the exercise of power; a father who repeatedly fails his daughter; a loving child who embraces her parents with the sweet generosity of innocence; and the cold, beating heart of geography known for its curiosities, in reality thrumming with atavistic hunger. Unger explores Florida's underbelly, a terrain blessed with nature's beauty, where evil lurks in the moldy crevasses sunshine never touches. Murder, greed, power- all coexist beneath the placid exterior of the sunshine state, Annie running from the horrors of the past only to meet them again, one last time. Skillfully weaving the theme of a mother's commitment to her child with the incredible chaos of a past that seeks to reclaim her, Annie searches for redemption, uncovering a web of deceit that is shocking. In her final challenge, Annie is fearless. Luan Gaines/ 2008.