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About the book:
I do not recommend anyone reading this book in the middle of summer if they are heavily pregnant, its a bit too real for that. this book is played out over a period of only 11 hours (thus the title) and as a result, the urgency to finish the book is intense once you start to read it. Its another great read from an always evolving author.

Synopsis: Nine months pregnant with her third child, Desdemona (Didi) Wood basks in the adoration of her husband, Rich, national sales manager for a Dallas-based religious publisher. Didi's only sin is that she's a compulsive shopper, blowing her husband's hard-earned cash at a Dallas mall. A nondescript young man approaches Didi inside the mall, then follows her and forces her into his Ford minivan. Terrified, Didi wonders if God is punishing her for not going to church often enough or for being a shopaholic.

this book was placed into the Oz VBB and it's presence has been requested on the other side of the continent by Jubby. So...... of it goes :-) I hope you enjoy it as much as I did Jubby.

Hello little book! I was not expecting you for a few more days, but obviously Australia post are working hard.

Now, I had intended to send this off as my Secret Santa present to a particular bookcrosser, but my husband has gotten his grubby little hands on it, and I may need to wrestle it from him to get this book into the post in time for Xmas.

Thank you very much for sharing your books with me Blundery.

RELEASE NOTES:

Sending this one off as a Secret Santa gift.

Thanks for a wonderful Christmas surprise :)

Wow. This book was terrific - really tense and difficult to put down! It reminded me a lot of Stephen King's writing, that feeling of I have to know what happens and I know it's going to be bad....
Thanks for a great read, this one will be going to meetup tomorrow.

RELEASE NOTES:

I picked up this book at the brunch meet-up because I had been told that Tully from this author was magnificent (and waiting for me to read after I picked it up from the convention last year) so I figured this one must be alright too. Based on the previous journal entries, it sounds like it's going to be a good read, so I'm looking forward to it!

From Amazon.com:
Continuing to hone her style, Simons follows the logorrheic Tully and the pensive Red Leaves with a sparely written, blatantly shocking page-turner. Nine months pregnant with her third child, Desdemona (Didi) Wood basks in the adoration of her husband, Rich, national sales manager for a Dallas-based religious publisher. Didi's only sin is that she's a compulsive shopper, blowing her husband's hard-earned cash at a Dallas mall. A nondescript young man approaches Didi inside the mall, then follows her and forces her into his Ford minivan. Terrified, Didi wonders if God is punishing her for not going to church often enough or for being a shopaholic. She soon learns that the kidnapper, Lyle Luft, is enraged at God for allowing his wife and child to die. He wants a baby, and he doesn't care how he gets it. Rich deduces that his missing wife was abducted in the mall parking lot, but police are skeptical until tough black FBI officer Scott Somerville joins the chase. Simons's pacing is pulse-racing as she cuts from the pursuers to the pursued with nightmarish speed, evoking with economy and style Didi's terror, pain and sheer physical discomfort. As the road chase continues, news bulletins about Didi's abduction prompt Lyle into homicidal fury. Once he kills a cop, he has nothing left to lose. Meanwhile, Didi tries to persuade Lyle that he's "acting against God," but it's not surprising that her sermon falls on deaf ears. Despite the blatant overlay of born-again religiosity, the momentum of the chase sustains the narrative, and Simons renders some final stomach-churning scenes of violence with unsparing detail. While the psychological explanation of Lyle's sociopathy is superficial, and Didi's transformation from suburban housewife to tough and cool avenger is less than plausible, the atmosphere of panic never abates until Simons brings her suspenseful tale to a close.

I had an evening appointment to donate blood yesterday so I needed a thin book that would be easy to hold, especially when I would be lying down and trying to pump blood at the same time! This fit the bill perfectly so I brought it along with me. This was a really quick read; I finished more than half of it during the whole blood donation process and I finished the rest of it at home after dinner. It may not be the most original story (I kept feeling that I had seen or read this before but I hadn't) and the plot was pretty transparent and predictable (like how the hell is it NOT obvious that the killer is after the baby?!), but it was still no less of a page-turner. This book reads like a movie screenplay and with the vivid descriptions, I could picture the scenes in my head and imagine what was going on, which kept me wanting more. What didn't fit quite right in the book - to me anyway - were the religious subtexts included in the novel. If Paullina Simons was trying to tie in a religious message that God has a plan for everything, I think it was a half-baked attempt to just throw in the conclusion at the end that God was looking out for the protagonist and it was his doing that sent Didi to the killer so she could do his work by finishing him off. Right, how convenient. I think the author should have paid more thought to it if she wanted to weave in a religious overtone to the novel; if she wasn't going to do it properly, then she should have just ditched that concept completely. Despite its flaws, it was still a fairly exciting read overall and it did its job of keeping me entertained while waiting around to get poked with a needle. That's good enough for me!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I am bringing this to the Melbourne BC Christmas brunch meet-up.

I've enjoyed the other books by Paullina Simons that I've read and so has my mum. Going into my mum's pile to read first, and then mine.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left in the room when we left.

I thought this book had a bit of an unbelievable storyline, although the suspense was well kept up.