April 30, 2009

Book #32: A Secret Rage

A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris is one of her few stand-alone novels. (The new Sookie Stackhouse book comes out May 5!) I find myself having a harder time connecting with her characters that are not in a series.

Nickie Callahan is a former model who’s returning to her Southern roots, and leaving New York City to move in with her best friend to go back to college in Tennessee. A lot of this book is about what it’s like to come back to the South after having been away for a long time. Part of you loves to be home, to see the familiar plants and trees growing, hear the familiar accents, but part of you is appalled at how much it hasn’t changed, and how small minded the rural South can be.

Upon moving back to Tennessee, Nickie hears about the recent rape that occurred on the college campus that she’ll be attending. Before she knows it, there are more and more victims, herself included. But Nickie decides that she doesn’t just feel victimized, and scared, she also feels enraged. She joins up with one of the other victims and they start making lists of all of the men they both know (both of them convinced the attacker knew them) and they begin investigating on their own.

Nickie slowly begins to get her life back, and embarks on a new romance, but she knows she’ll never be the same person she was. The ending was realistic, but somewhat unsatisfying. I guess I don’t like too much reality intruding in my stories.

3 comments:

Pam said...

I just picked up the first book in the Stackhouse series. This one sounds really great though. I enjoy reading books about this area (TN) as you can visulize nearly as if you were there.

Goodness..you are flying through books! I'm stuck on one right now. Well, not really stuck. Just too busy with other things to read much.

Queen Kandis said...

Pam, I think you'll like the Sookie Stackhouse series. It's one of my favorites, and Charlaine Harris does great with the small town South.

I always say if you don't have time to read, it's probably not a very good book. But that may just be me. I'm always in the middle of a non-fiction that sometimes takes a year to finish (while I devour a dozen more fun reads in the meantime).

Pam said...

Oh non-fiction can take me forever to finish sometimes. Why is that? haha.

I'm looking forward to starting the Stackhouse series. I added the first season of True Blood to my Netflix a few weeks ago.