About Face
About Face book cover

About Face

by
Price
$8.33
Publisher
Zebra Books
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0821770207
Dimensions
4.36 x 1.11 x 6.72 inches
Weight
6.8 ounces

Description

From Publishers Weekly There's enough melodrama in Michaels's newest offering (after No Place Like Home) to quench the thirst of soap opera devotees during a daytime drama drought, and the author's fans will likely lap up every word. At 17, Casey Edwards has experienced plenty of heartache and betrayal. Her mother, Evie, neglects her; her stepbrother, Ronnie, sexually abuses her; and her fiancx82 may leave her if she doesn't have sex with him. The day Casey finally fights back and stabs Ronnie in the leg, she miscarries his baby and comes to 10 years later in a mental hospital with no memory of her life before being admitted. Evie, now wealthy and married, greets Casey with little enthusiasm, as do the citizens of Sweetwater, Ga., and she can't help but wonder why. Slowly, she pieces together the lost details of her life with the help of Dr. Blake Hunter, a gorgeous family friend, but there are those who will do anything to keep her memories buried. Michaels's characterizations are far from subtle, and her plot consists of too many highs and lows with very little in between. However, her incisive descriptions of Southern life (and the mannerisms that separate the wealthy from the working masses) will impress, even if the conventional romance between Blake and Casey doesn't. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Casey Edwards is finally being released from a home for the mentally disabled after 10 years of amnesia. Dr. Blake Hunter, a friend of the family, is surprised by Casey's cropped-short hair and brown institutional dress, but has no trouble getting her safely ensconced in her new home. And new home it is, since when Casey left, hers was run down. This is a fine estate. Other things are also odd to Casey. Why will no one talk about the events preceding the day she was institutionalized? Who is trying to make her doubt her own sanity? Did the flashbacks she's experiencing really happen or are they a sign of a mental breakdown? Michaels is at her storytelling best here as Casey is determined to discover the truth no matter how traumatic, and Blake is just as determined to help this woman who is slowly becoming someone he could love. Maria Hatton Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved FERN MICHAELS is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of the Sisterhood, Men of the Sisterhood, and Godmothers series, as well as dozens of other novels and novellas. There are over ninety-five million copies of her books in print. Fern Michaels has built and funded several large day-care centers in her hometown, and is a passionate animal lover who has outfitted police dogs across the country with special bulletproof vests. She shares her home in South Carolina with her four dogs and a resident ghost named Mary Margaret. Visit her website at www.fernmichaels.com. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • "Michaels is at her storytelling best here." —
  • Booklist
  • About Face
  • When Dr. Blake Hunter discovers Casey Edwards wandering along a Sweetwater, Georgia, road, she's a woman without a past, her memory stripped of the terrifying events that shattered her innocence a decade ago. The scrap of paper she clutches in her hand bears the address to Swan House, the magnificent mansion where Casey's mother lives with her mysteriously ailing husband. But "home" turns out to be anything but a safe haven.  .  .Casey is determined to untangle the web of secrets that surround her. The answers lay somewhere within Swan House and its lavish gardens but someone wants Casey out of the way before she remembers too much. It will take the strength she's always had—and the love she's just found—to uncover her past and claim her future.  .  .

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(320)
★★★★
25%
(267)
★★★
15%
(160)
★★
7%
(75)
★
23%
(246)

Most Helpful Reviews

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TOO drawn out.

The plot takes place on an island, and it feels like everyone on the island has a few chapters devoted to him or her. I think that the plot is drawn out so much that it makes the reading frustrating. She seems to give a large part of the story to characters that are inconsequential to the plot. Although, the plot is a bit dark (childhood trauma) you are hooked right away. But the interest may fade with all of the added stories. I found myself skimming pages looking for the real plot to pickup again. If you have a lot of time and patience this is the book for you. For those of us that have little patience and much less time, it is an exasperating read and I do not recommend it.
10 people found this helpful
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Well written

I like Michaels' style, and unlike her Kentucky trilogy that drips with sorrow and tragedy, About Face is a step up from that. It's a good murder mystery with plenty of surprises and pretty darned hot in places (oh my!). I had a difficult time grasping Casey's character, though, and her relationship with her mother once she's out of the asylum. And why, after cutting herself with glass chards obviously put in her body lotion on purpose, would she stay in that environment? A previous reviewer is correct. Someone abused, institutionalized, and drugged for so many years would not be able to cope well in this paranoia-inducing situation as well as Casey did.
Well written, morose in places, but at least Casey wasn't digging up horse bones (I'm still not over Kentucky Sunrise).
7 people found this helpful
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A tragic Novel with an innocent heroine

While I read the reviews of others about this book after I purchased it, I couldn't help but reade it and I did mostly out of boredom. Now that I've finished reading it I don't think its as bad as some reviewers describe it to be. Too each its own and all of us have a certain point of view and a different taste but in my opinion there are far more worse books than this one. I'm not familiar with Fern Michaels so this was my very first novel of her and knowing that her fans think that its bad I think I'll definitely read one of her earlier books and then maybe I can see the difference. However this was a good read to pass time.
The story starts in an island in the state of Georgia a young woman named Cassie has just been released from a mental hospital that she was trapped in for ten years. She is a woman with no past whatsoever she can't remember anything about herself or who she was before she entered the mental hospital. She can't even remember why she was there in the first place. The only live she knew is her life in the mental hospital now that she's out and about she goes to search for her past. In her new home (the place where Cassie's mother and her mysterious extremely rich husband lives) Cassie goes through a series of events that threatens her life. And those events grew more dangerous as she starts to regain her memory back someone is trying to keep her from remembering too much before its too late. And along the lines the island's citizens comes upon to hate Cassie and blame her for her brother's tragic death 10 years ago. While she and a young Dr who later becomes her lover are trying to unfold the mysteries of her past life.
2 people found this helpful
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Not her best, but Michael fans will like it.

The story grabs your attention right away, which is good. I don't think anything by Fern Michaels is bad - many others have been better, however.

The main character, Casey, is a young woman released from a mental institution after 10 years who cannot remember what happened to send her there. She goes back to her home town to find out. With the help of the local doctor, Blake, who becomes her love interest as well, they start unraveling the horrible story of what took place in her young life. There are a lot of twists and turns here as well as shady characters to keep the reader interested. The novel could have been absolutely captivating if it had been written just a little differently. The light-hearted bantering (dialogue) between 2 main characters took away from the seriousness of the situation. It didn't seem appropriate at times it was inserted in the story line.

It is a disturbing story, how she was repeatedly raped as a child by a stepbrother, neglected by her mother, and the dark images that haunt her but that she can't identify. She has been drugged heavily for the past 10 years in the institution, and she is afraid to take any medication, but agrees to regression therapy as a last resort to try to remember what supposedly drove her mad.

It's hard not to care about Michael's characters. The "Mommy, Dearest" of the main character was a little hard to believe, yet was lots of fun to hate. It's also a fast read and keeps you turning those pages, perfect for a day at the beach or at the airport.

One thing that did surprise me about this Fern Michaels is that in the beginning of the book Casey has a daydream of home and family, complete with dog (Fern Michaels' novels aren't complete without a dog) but in the end one isn't mentioned. A golden retriever sitting next to the bassinet of the newborn would have been more like the Michaels we know and love!
2 people found this helpful
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About Face

About Face has all the things anyone could ever want in a book...it has a wonderful love story , all the twist & turns of a true mystery & characters that the reader comes to know & love. The story grabs the reader on the first page & you are hooked until the very last page..It is easy to visualize the characters & their personalities, as they become real .... I also enjoyed the informaional things about the area it was set in.....this book is a keeper !!!! I very much enjoyed reading this book ..
2 people found this helpful
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Fast moving plot, but too many characters complicate things

This was the first book by Fern Michaels that I have read. It came to me in a box of paperbacks passed along by a friend. Most of the books were historical bodice-ripper romances, which didn't appeal, but I gave "About Face" a try since it is a modern romance/thriller and sounded interesting. On the positive side, the plot moves quickly and keeps you guessing. The romance between the heroine (Casey) and the hero (Blake) is a welcome bit of sunshine in Casey's otherwise bizarre and often tortured world. However, the story is stuffed with so many characters that it was hard to keep track of who was who. As other reviewers have pointed out, some of the characters were introduced and then not developed sufficiently. (For example, Julie the maid at the mansion: Although there are hints that she has some secrets of her own, we never find out anything more about her or her husband.) Other characters, particularly from the start of the book, are never mentioned again, even though all the action takes place in the same small community. What about the woman who worked at the drugstore, or Casey's best friend from high school, or the old lady and the kind nurse from the mental asylum where Casey spent 10 years? Even her former fiance and his mother, who are key to the plot at the beginning of the story, are barely mentioned later on. I also found Casey's nightmare of a mother to be totally unbelievable. There is no satisfactory explaination as to why or when Casey's mother started treating her daughter so badly, and why she would favour her no-hoper of a stepson over her own daughter (even to the extent that she tolerates regualar sexual abuse of a very young Casey by her stepson). There are a few crumbs of information about her mother's own unhappy youth, but it is never developed fully. In the end, all you can summize is that Casey's mother is a total psycho. The transformation of Casey from a timid woman walking away from 10 years of drug-induced stupour in an asylum, to a well-dressed woman of the world capable of having a loving relationship, is just too neat. But hey, it is only a story! Based on this book alone, I would not buy any of Fern Michael's other books, but for a free paperback, it wasn't so bad. (Final gripe--the cover on the
paperback version isn't relevant to the story. Even though the action takes place on a small island, there is very little mention of the beach/sea in the story.)
1 people found this helpful
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TOTALLY DISSAPPOINTING

I was really dissappointed with the plot of the story. Yes, I know it's just a story, but where a mother wants to make her child insane/killed doesn't wash well with me. Most of all the knowledge that her child was being molested and had done nothing about it made my skin crawl. I basically didn't like the whole story. The only reason why I gave it two stars was because of the writing.
1 people found this helpful
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Emotionally Charged!

Emotionally Charged!
This is an emotionally charged book. The twists, turns and tension continue to build throughout the entire book. At times you can’t put it down because if you do, your mind won’t stop cheering and wanting to plot ways to help the characters. A bit of a surprise at the end. Of course it is well written and fast paced. Worth noting is that the book contains molestation of a child in fairly graphic details. This is a bit heavy and deep—not a summer beach read. Enjoy! NetGalley and Kensington Books and Zebra provided an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Five Stars

thank you all was great
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Good, but could have been great.

I don't usually read this author, but I was out of new stuff and a neighbor passed it along to me.

I enjoyed it enough to want to give it a review, but I have to say I was extremely disappointed with the way it ended and the epilogue.

The basic story was excellent, the mystery plausible and enough to keep you interested. The characters were well thought out, but there was a lot of inconsistancy in Casey. I was expecting way more 'woe is me' from Casey when she finally remembered what had happened to her, but she coasted right over it like suddenly remembering years of emotional and sexual abuse was no big deal. That in itself was un-believable.

Blake, who was supposed to be the town doctor, while he had a lot of heart, didn't do much doctoring. He liked to follow Casey around and very quickly became pretty devoted to her.

I thought the ending sucked. Most authors can wrap up the story in the epilogue and when you finally put it down, you're like, okay...cool, they moved on...happily ever after, and so on. I felt that she ended the story too abruplty. She spent all that time developing the characters (not just the lead male and female, but Flora, John, Julie, Adam, and the Sheriff and everyone else) and then it was just over with little to no information on what happened to them. She didn't even talk about what happened to Evie, only implied, and she was one of the main characters.

She solved the mystery, confronted the bad guys, and ended the story in less than 13 pages and that just didn't work for me.

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