Second Glance - Jodi Picoult

A piece of land has been assigned for development into a shopping mall, much to the chagrin of local Abenaki Indians, who claim it is an ancient burial ground. At the same time, the inhabitants of the nearby town of Comtosook in Vermont begin to notice some very strange happenings - ground frost in the middle of summer, rose petals falling from the sky, food not tasting as it should do. A ghost hunter who has never seen a ghost, Ross Wakeman, is called in by the development's foreman, in the hope that he can call up the ghosts and get rid of them. Ross finds more than he bargained for when he really does meet a ghost, helping him to forget the death of his fiancee in a ...  Read the complete review

The first book I read by Jodi Picoult was "My Sisters Keeper" which really made me think (and made me exclaim out loud in the middle of a packed train carriage!!!) Picoult has a habit of writing stories with the most horrendous moral dilemmas that we can only hope and pray we will never have to deal with, and most of them centre around a court room drama. I've since read five other books and while I found them gripping, I found that the basic plots at the centre of each book are essentially the same. Except for "Second Glance" which is very very different. It reads like any other Picoult book; well rounded characters that I found ...  Read the complete review

Whilst normally in a Jodi Picoult book review, it would be the norm to say how it is a crime based or court room based drama, but with the emphasis firmly on drama, on people and on emotions, here this is not the case. This is I guess somewhat of a supernatural book, focusing on ghosts, which normally would put me right off, but the thing that remains the same here, is that if this is a supernatural drama, the emphasis is firmly on drama, on people and on emotions. It's a very different story for Jodi to have done, but retains all the quality of her usual works when it comes to making you feel for and relate to the characters, and to grow to truly care about them - which ...  Read the complete review

Second Glance is a very different novel from Jodi Picoult's usual stories. As a best-selling author she normally tackles complicated topics, moral dilemmas and difficult issues which might arise in real life. Second Glance takes a slightly different turn however as it is to do with the topic of ghosts. However despite this there is still Picoult's trademark style with her wonderfully descriptive characters experiencing the stresses and dilemmas of life and in this case love. The story is set in Vermont, USA in the little town of Comtosook. Here a developer is planning to build a new shopping mall on a piece of land which is said to be an ancient Native ...  Read the complete review

I've been getting through a lot of books recently, as I've just started commuting. Well, I've just started to accept that I'm commuting and trying to deal with it in the best way - for me, that's reading. I listen to music all day at my desk, so I don't quite fancy plugging into the ipod on the train. I picked this book up as it was on offer in Morrissons, so I didn't have particularly high hopes for it, especially as the book I got in tandem was one of the worst reads of my life. I've never read any Jodi Picoult before, and I'm not sure that after reading this I'd rush out with the sole purpose of reading another of her novels, but at the same time, this was ...  Read the complete review