- Tell Me Your Dreams -

Title: ~ ♥ Tell Me Your Dreams ♥ ~

Author: Syndey Sheldon

Setting: California

Characters

~ ♥ Toni Prescott ♥ ~

We quickly learn that Toni is a mischevious, bold character. She's young, independant, not afraid to speak her mind and free-spirited. It seems that there is a lot more to her than that though...and there's plenty that we don't yet know...

~ ♥ Alette Peters ♥ ~

She's the exact opposite of Toni - perhaps this is why they get on so well. Toni tries to bring Alette, who is a sweet but shy, kind-hearted young woman, out of her shell. Alette's very in touch with her creative, artistic side but she has a lot of pent up anger building up inside her...

~ ♥ Ashley Patterson ♥ ~

Described as 'elegant yet haunted', Ashley is the main character of the three. As I mentioned, she's convinced that someone is stalking her, but there's plenty more troubling her besides...

Theme:

Toni is mischievous, ebullient and venturesome, very attractive kind of girl. Loves singing and dancing.
Alette is timid, quiet and virtuous though there is something always burning inside her. Loves painting
Ashley is intelligent, elegant and attractive. She's convinced that some one is stalking her and the nightmares come along in every sleep of her.

Toni and Aiette are friend but Ashley may never be aware of them if it did not happen. 'It' here is serial brutal murders with all men victims and all link to three women. One is Ashley's colleague who has had a crush on her. One is Toni's chat friend and one is Aiette's artist friend.

Three beautiful young women are the main characters of this thrilling story and they all work together at the same company - Global Computer Graphics Corporation. After a series of brutal murders take place on men all linked in one way or another to one of these women, we are lead to an unexpected turn. Who killed these men, and why? What skeletons are hiding in these women's closets? It seems that each character has some deep, dark past and it becomes fascinating as a reader to see their stories intertwine.

Plot

Ashley Patterson is 28 years old, from Bedford, USA.
Toni Prescott is 22 years old, from London. England.
Alette Peters is 20 years old, from Rome, Italian.
They three work at Global Computer Graphic Corporation in Cupertino, California.

Three women work for a computer company. All of them have very different personalities. Ashley is sensible and career minded, Toni is fun loving, always looking for a good time, and Alette who is shy and of an artist nature.

Men known to all three women end up dead and after an investigation it is discovered that Ashley’s fingerprints and DNA are present at all the murder scenes. After being arrested she is seen by a psychiatrist and it transpires that she is suffering from MPD (multiple personality disorder) and that Toni and Alette are actually manifestations of Ashley personality. Whilst she did physically commit the murders, it was actually her alter-ego, Toni that was driven to kill them.

Meanwhile Ashley had no prior knowledge of her alter-egos or suffering from MPD, so she had no knowledge of killing anyone. This all leads to a lengthy court room battle to plead her case and eventually she is cleared on ground of insanity. She is sent to psychiatric hospital for years to be treated and after many hypnotherapy sessions it comes to light that she created these alter-egos because she couldn’t cope with being molested by her father as a child. It is now that you discover that the men were killed because they had attempted to take advantage of her sexually, provoking childhood memories causing her alter ego Toni to take control of her. After years of different therapies Ashley finally accepted that this had all happened to her and that she was suffering from MPD and even got to know her Alter egos and to put them to rest and she was finally released back into the community. As she left the hospital she felt free and was ready to start her life again, cured of her illness, or so it would seem.

Resolution

The book could easily be classed as a psychological thriller or belonging to the genre of crime. At the same time as finding out who killed these men we are unwittingly learning more about out three leading ladies...there's just something about each of them...something lurking in their pasts. Sheldon creates depth and builds up the story to a climax we were not expecting. The pace of the story is good, with it moving it one direction at a steady pace before taking an unexpected turn.
The anti-climax then makes for extremely interesting reading as loose ends then become tied up. But there's no neat ending, Sheldon's conclusion is one that makes you think the story isn't ending. Oh no, it's just about to begin....

But it's readable. He doesn't mess about, describing every little detail to the point where you forget the point he was trying to make in the first place - a lot of his writing is actually dialogue between characters. I have to say though, that I favor this style, and think it's the best and most appropriate for this particular story.
There are some snippets of French and Italian in there with the dialogue, mostly due to the fact that part of the story is set in, and one character lives in, Quebec. Also, Alette Peters is Italian. It won't affect your understanding nor your enjoyment of the story if you don't understand these snippets. Sometimes they're subtly translated - that is, either the speaker will translate as they are speaking, or sometimes the speaker is just repeating what the other person in the conversation said, 'See you tomorrow, ''A demean'.

I like it when books do this, it's just a small touch and doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but just makes it that little bit more authentic. Alette Peters is Italian, and though throughout the book she is speaking English, it makes sense that from time to time she might say something in Italian. Still, this might annoy some potential readers.

We also get an insight into the thoughts of some of the characters - Sheldon writes these in italics as thought we can hear the voice inside the particular character's head. It's an effective device, which makes a reader want to find out more about these complex characters.

Sphere by Michael Crichton

Title: SPHERE

Author: Micheal Crichton

Setting: Middle of the South Pacific

Characters: Norman Johnson

Beth

Harry

Theme:

The event that brought the team together was the discovery of a space vessel at the bottom of the ocean. It is clearly not an earthly vessel, since it has been lying down there for at least three hundred years, long before humans had even airplanes. Rather than an underground research lab, the scientists are confined to a U.S. Navy deep-water habitat. When they discover the power of the alien force facing them, they realize that not only they are, but the entire world is, at risk.

The ideas presented are no longer based on concrete scientific grounds -- some of them are as far-fetched as time travel, some even more than that. When scientific data is presented, it is done in a fleeting way. In fact, the leading character falls asleep during one of the explanations, a simple narrative device for sparing a boring lecture from the readers while hinting that this is, after all, real science. No maps, computer scan printouts, or diagrams are included.

Synopsis

The novel is built around an incredible discovery; in the middle of the South Pacific, lying all but buried on the bottom of the ocean, rests a spacecraft of unknown origin. Psychologist Norman Johnson, the author of a secret government paper on "Recommendations for the Human Contact Team to Interact with Unknown Life Forms" (a less than serious paper he wrote primarily for the money) is called to the site, where he is informed that he will be part of a team of scientists sent to study the mysterious craft. Alongside him are an irascible Navy project commander, a brilliant, young astrophysicist/planetary geologist, a complicated female zoologist/biochemist and a noted mathematician/logician -- an unlikely team of deep ocean explorers.

They soon find themselves in an artificial habitat resting alongside the location of the mysterious ship. Their exploration of the site yields more questions than answers, as the ship turns out to be an American spaceship from the future. The truly enigmatic discovery onboard, though, is a giant sphere of unknown composition. As the story unfolds, they find themselves effectively stranded on the ocean floor for a period of some days, and strange and frightening things begin to happen after one scientist somehow enters the sphere. The scientists find themselves in communication with a supposedly alien entity who calls himself Jerry; whoever and whatever Jerry is, he seems to have the power to manifest remarkable physical creations and changes in reality. The habitat and the team inside it soon comes under attack by such dangerous creatures as giant squid and killer jellyfish, but the problems eventually internalize themselves inside the group dynamic, a group that is shrinking in size as time goes by. The mysterious sphere imparts an amazing power to those who enter it, a power that such individuals may not even be consciously aware of wielding.

Ultimately, the last remnants of the research team begin pointing fingers at one another and take steps to ensure their own individual survival in the face of an unquantifiable threat, making this novel a gripping psychological thriller based in a fascinating science fiction environment.

Once the team arrives in the underwater habitat, nonstop action ensues. One emergency after another challenges the crew, and the group dynamic of the team ebbs and flows along with each jarring crisis. Along the way, we see ever more clearly into the minds and ways of thinking of our main characters, and a significant amount of ideas are expressed concerning the human condition. Crichton provides for no obligatory rest areas along the way, as he takes the reader for an incredible ride that had me turning pages hand over fist in anticipation of what was to come. Some of the science is questionable, but Crichton surely makes it all sound more than plausible. The only real problem with the novel is a logical breakdown of sorts in the concluding chapters. Still, the desperate attempts of the remaining explorers to survive, when they cannot even trust one another, make for a riveting reading experience.

Resolution

One beautiful thing that Sphere does include is the message encoding scheme used by the alien. The actual code is included in the book, along with an explanation on how it was cracked -- simple enough for every reader to try his hand in the act of deciphering. A computer is needed, but you don't even have to turn it on: it is the form, not the content that matters.

The characters, for example, are much more complete, even though their personalities are taken to such extremes that they are almost caricatures -- Beth, a caricature of a feminist; Harry, a caricature of a depressed child; and so on. But the characters are definitely better presented.

One redeeming feature of Sphere is the surprising twist at the last few paragraphs. It is so subtly hinted, though, that I have actually missed it on first read.

While it is heavy on dialogue, the story touches on a number of aspects of the human personality while mixing in some profound if problematic science fiction in the process. This is a fast-paced thriller that definitely registers impressively on the suspense meter, particularly during the climactic late chapters. The ending is something of a letdown, but the story leading up to it is gripping and fascinating, and important clues and plot points are presented with much more subtlety and effectiveness than what you will find in the movie adaptation.

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Title:

Digital Fortress

Author:

Dan Brown

Setting:

Spain

Characters:

Dave Becker

Susan Fletcher

Ensei Tankado

Trevor Strathmore

Introduction:

"NSA cryptographer Susan Fletcher is told that their powerful code breaking machine, TRANSLTR, has encountered a code it cannot break. The code is written by a former NSA employee, Ensei Tankado, who demands that the US government admits publicly to having the TRANSLTR. If not, he will release the code that TRANSLTR can't break, thus making the code breaking machine useless.

Fletcher's fiancée, professor David Becker, is sent to Spain to collect Ensei Tankado's belongings. Tankado has died from a heart attack, and Becker has to find the pass-key to unlock the code before someone else does.

Susan Fletcher, David Becker and NSA Commander Trevor Strathmore try to find the pass-key, and at the same time they have to keep the threat a secret from the rest of the world."

Plot:

"Susan is one of the top Code breakers at the NSA. She monitors the use of the code breaking machine that can break all codes in less than 3 hrs and is used by all forms of US intelligance. She is called in when a program is still running after 12+ hrs. At the same time her fiance is sent to Spain to try and locate the "key" to stopping the release of a code program that will allow the NSA to break codes that Digital Fortress (the encrypting program) is used to protect. In Spain it becomes clear that someone is out to keep the key safe as people who have come in contact with it are killed.
The story follows the progress to not only figuring out who has planted the code but how to keep it from letting the world into the NSA files."
"The National Security Agency (NSA) is one setting for this exciting thriller; the other is Seville, where on page 1 the protagonist, lately dismissed from NSA, drops dead of a supposed heart attack. Though dead, he enjoys a dramaturgical afterlife in the form of his computer program. Digital Fortress creates unbreakable codes, which could render useless NSA's code-cracking supercomputer called TRANSLTR, but the deceased programmer slyly embossed a decryption key on a ring he wore. NSA cryptology boss Trevor Strathmore dispatches linguist Dave Becker to recover the ring, while he and Becker's lover, senior code-cracker Susan Fletcher, ponder the vulnerability of TRANSLTR. In Seville, over-the-top chase scenes abound; meanwhile, the critical events unfold at NSA. In a crescendo of murder, infernos, and explosions. While letting the world believe that certain strong encryption algorithms are too mathematically complicated to break in a reasonable amount of time given current technology, the NSA (National Security Association) has developed a machine which can break anything- until a new unbreakable encryption algorithm is created by an individual with a grudge against the NSA. The NSA find themselves in a position of needing to intercept and destroy the algorithm before it can be released to the world and render their spying efforts useless. Along the way there are twists and turns and different individuals with different agendas to add some excitement to the story. "the NSA [National Security Agency, but so secret that it's also known as No Such Agency] lobbied fiercely against all new encryption software, insisting it crippled them and made it impossible for lawmakers to catch and prosecute the criminals. Civil rights groups cried foul, insisting the NSA shouldn't be reading their mail anyway. Encryption software kept rolling off the presses. The NSA had lost the battle--exactly as it had planned

Resolution:

"Information age terrorism is the topical subject of Brown's inventive debut thriller about a virtual attack on the National Security Agency's top-secret super computer, TRANSLTR. Although TRANSLTR is meant to monitor and decode e-mail between terrorists, the computer can also covertly intercept e-mail between private citizens. The latter capability drives former NSA programmer Ensei Tankado to paralyze TRANSLTR with Digital Fortress, a devious mathematical formula with an unbreakable code. Tankado then demands that the NSA publicly admit TRANSLTR's existence or he will auction Digital Fortress's pass-key to the highest bidder. Brown cleverly makes ironic, mischievous Tankado (who dies in the first chapter) the most interesting character in the book and its real protagonist, as the programmer posthumously outmaneuvers his opposition, countering their obsessive quest for complex solutions with brilliant simplicity. His favorite saying, "Who will guard the guards?" stands in noble contrast to the NSA agents self-righteous insistence that they always know what is best for America... In this fast-paced, plausible tale, Brown blurs the line between good and evil enough to delight patriots and paranoids alike."

Deception

Title: Deception

Author: Judith Michael

Setting: United States and Europe

Characters:

Stephanie

Sabrina

Garth Anderson

Theme:

The Story have included sharp and witty insights and observations in several of the novel's scenarios. Would you change places with your twin sibling? If you'd ask Sabrina Longworth, the one half of the duo protagonist team of DECEPTIONS, she'd probably say not on your life. She'd also say that having tried it more than once, thanks to the imagination of Judith Michael's Judith Barnard and Michael Faine, she lived to regret it, big time. Indeed, faith has a strange way of throwing a curveball when least expected. Especially to this fictitious bunch whose lives make for a pretty decent time-waster read despite the been there seen that plotline. Just go to show you that originality comes in small doses. Just simmer it in creativity and punchy dialogue, and you've got yourself one hot bestseller that is as juicy as a pack of Doublemint gum. What if you not only had a twin, but decided one day to trade places... just for a little while. What begins as a lark for sisters Stephanie and Sabrina quickly turns into so much more in this surprisingly satisfying read in which, perhaps not surprisingly, we are taught to be grateful for what we have for the grass is not always greener on the other side. For most of us, the perhaps unconscious thrill lies in the story of Stephanie, the twin whose life in suburbia has become almost stifling, especially when compared to that of her exotic, exciting twin sister, Lady Sabrina Longworth. Quicker than you can say, "Hey, what if we traded places?" Stephanie is living the high life, while Sabrina is trading cocktail parties for backyard bar-b-ques. This is classic Judith Michael, who for several years stirred the imagination by taking classic cases of "what if" and spun them into fanciful, frothy books. "What if... you won the lottery?" (Pot Of Gold) "What if... you found out that your newly deceased husband had a rich, secret family he never told you about?" (A Ruling Passion) But with Deceptions, the novel that started it all, the authors crafted perhaps their best "what if" scenario by playing on a theme nearly every one of us has pondered at one time or another. Those looking for a good time could do a whole lot worse than to spend their summer with Stephanie and Sabrina!

Learn about the strong bond between identical twins, Sabrina and Stephanie, and how they developed into two different women leading two different lives. We become immersed in Sabrina's exclusive world of London high society, antique dealerships, and exquisitely designed townhouses. Her more brazen personality allows her to survive quite nicely and make astute dealings among London's elite. Stephanie lives more obscurely in a small university town in the States with her professor husband, Garth. Their domestic, suburban life with their two children and supportive neighbors is surprisingly realistic and at times endearing. The major premise is that the sisters tire of the complications in their lives and decide to switch places. The novel is well structured as the reader flows from Stephanie's adjustment to Sabrina's jet-set life while Sabrina brings her strength and determination to life as a suburban professor's wife. This is definitely escape literature, but an intelligent read. If you enjoy reading good descriptions of the finer things in life and excellent character development, this book comes highly recommended.

Summary:

"Sabrina and Stephanie Longworth are twins. Sabrina married a wealthy English aristocrat and divorced him. She now runs a successful antiques business in London. Stephanie married Garth Anderson, a scientist and university professor. She stays at home in the suburbs with their two children and envies her sister's jet set lifestyle. Stephanie's desire for a more exciting life is putting a strain on her marriage.

Stephanie gets Sabrina to switch places so she can have some fun but does not want Garth to know. Garth did not like Sabrina when he met her and thinks she is the cause of Stephanie's dissatisfaction with her life. Sabrina quickly adjusts to Stephanie's home life, and gets to know and like Garth. Stephanie finds she is good at the antiques business. But just before they are to switch back, Sabrina breaks her leg and the deception has to continue. Stephanie does not mind because she has started an affair with one of Sabrina's friends. Nor is Stephanie upset when Sabrina confesses she could not say no when Garth wanted to make love. The longer Sabrina lives with Garth, the more she falls in love with him. Garth feels like he is falling in love with his wife all over again as she takes an interest in his work and encourages his dreams instead of wanting him to make more money.

Then Stephanie is killed when her lover's yacht explodes. Sabrina cannot bring herself to tell Garth it was really Stephanie and she tries to carry on the deception because she loves Garth too much to have him leave her once he learns the truth."

Resolution:

This book was first published in 1982. This is a very satisfying story with several unpredictable plot twists. The premise of the story, identical twins switching lives for a week, seems sort of contrived until the author actually immerses us into their new roles, challenges, and emotions. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, staying up extra late at night because I didn't want to put it down.
When I read Deceptions, I thought it was going to be a sappy-love story. Generally, all love stories have a sappiness; Deceptions was no different. Although, I loved it. It was very enthralling, and it told the story well by developing the characters so you could almost smell and feel the same things they did. I enjoyed Sabrina Longworth's passionate personality, and her sister's loving qualities; but the real story laid with Garth Anderson. He was Stephanie’s husband, and he had two children with her. The fact was that Sabrina and Garth met once and strongly disliked each other, but when Sabrina and Stephanie play on Garth with the deception--- they fall in love. A bit predictable, only you expect the story to lie with Stephanie and not Sabrina. Without Stephanie’s smaller, and not as developed life-style in Sabrina's world, you wouldn't be able to laugh at all the odd mishappenings that go on within the book. When Sabrina and Garth begin to fall in love, (Garth re-falling in love with his wife who seemed dead for so many years, and Sabrina falling in love with Stephanie’s husband) it's comical. It was fun to read about this odd circle the Authors developed. The two sisters, living in swapped worlds, and two men who don't know or care that they are not sleeping with the woman they think--- or for that matter, married to the woman they think. Stephanie kept messing everything up, and Sabrina kept trying to fix it. Then there was Garth who really was just going with it, blind to the obvious deception in front of him. My only objection to how these two people write, the husband and wife team of Judith Michael, is that it is free with swearing and intimacies. All in all, it was a rare, sappy love story, with an intricate plot that had it all: humor, love, and a well developed story back ground. It's well worth the time to read, and it won't take you long because it is so enthralling. Deceptions is the type of book that is just hard to put down at two-thirty in the morning, knowing you have five hours before you get up to work the next day; it's the type of book you keep saying: another chapter, and I swear I'll go to bed.