24 hours by greg iles

The Summary (Goodreads):

24 Hours begins with the perfect family. On the perfect night. About to be trapped in the perfect crime.

Will and Karen Jennings are a successful young couple with every reason to celebrate. From modest beginnings they have built the life of their dreams. Will has a thriving medical practice, and stands at the threshold of a great fortune. Karen has designed a magnificent house to shelter them and the five-year-old daughter they love beyond measure. But they are about to be tested in a way they could never imagine.

They have been targeted by John Hickey, a genius who has found the key to one of the oldest crimes in the world - Kidnapping. Hickey has turned the crime inside out, creating an unbreakable knot of technology and terror that no man can unravel. In twenty-four hours of hellish precision, he squeezes a family's pressure points, extracts the ransom, and vanishes into thin air, leaving the hostage alive but the family too shattered even to call the police. Five times he has executed his plan, and not once has he been caught. He is unstoppable. Untouchable.

But this time Hickey wants more than money. This time he is driven by the pain of his own family tragedy, one he lays at the door of Will and Karen Jennings. He means to avenge it in his own terrible way and disappear forever. He has reckoned every factor but one: Will, Karen, and Abby Jennings share a love that only the closest families know, and from that love grows a formidable strength.

Though miles apart, the brilliant physician, the protective mother, and the resourceful child struggle against the clock to thwart the madman who threatens their family, and to reunite at last. They have twenty-four hours to succeed where others have failed. Twenty-four hours to cut the unbreakable knot. Twenty-four hours to live or die.

My Thought:

This is actually his first book that I ever read. The story is well written, fast paced, with some twists that literally make you sit up and can't stop reading. Work for me at least. A story of a kidnapping fought with a family's love and determination, with his usual ability to tap not only into the hearts and minds of his heroes, but also into the hearts and minds of his villains, making you shudder with his realism.

A movie was made of this book, starring Kevin Bacon and Charlize Theron with different title; Trapped. The young daughter of a successful doctor and his wife kidnapped. The head kidnapper stays with the mother, while the knockout female kidnapper's wife stays with the doctor (who is at a convention) until daylight, when he can access his bank account to get the money. The kidnapper didn't know that the child is diabetic, so his careful plans must be changed to keep the girl alive until the money can be collected.

Greg Iles is a great writer and this is the most cinematically dramatic of his books. There are some harrowing scenes that are visually pretty darn crazy. You can see why they made a movie of this one. I ensure you both of the book and the movie are great and has it's own uniqueness, with incredibly suspense!

I think Greg Iles is a guaranteed delight. Have you ever read his books?

My Rating: 4.5/5

practical magic by alice hoffman

The Summary (copied from alice hoffman site):

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally endured that fate: As children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their darkened house and their love concoctions and their crowd of black cats. All Gillian and Sally wanted to do was escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back to each other, and to the magic they couldn’t escape. A delicious novel about witches and real love, family life and everyday spells. A literary incantation.

What i think about the book:

ehmmm..(clear my throat..), i think the book is a good..but i dont really expect much as i read quarter of it..because right ahead, i know the movie is a lot better than the book..maybe because i already watched the movie, then i'll sum up with this kind of confessions on the book.. naturally, the book is readable and i like how the story goes..simple, but also a bit captivate..i love fantasy plus a little romance in it..magic is sometime cool, but will cost you a lot if you don't aware of it's danger..sally and gillian knew that their life will never escape from the witchery lineage that they have since 200 years ago from maria owens, but they also longed for a normal life like others in non-magic way which people will accept you as who you are..sally is kind of timid, and gillian is very messed up, pretty but really messed up..like all problems revolved around her..and sally is like her life saver..

hoffman thought of some cool love and magic conflict here..she made the love as the trigger of the owens's curse (one who marries owens will die when the time comes--this is very tragic idea), however, love also the obvious thing that conquers all in the end and in fact, break the curse..the only flaw i can find in this book is that, there were so much information/description's overlapping..the redundant of info's made me sometime confused, e.g; hoffman was telling what sally was thinking about gillian's problems and at the same time hoffman also described whatever gillian was thinking of jimmy angelov in sally's thinking.. and there's so much parts like that..

my thought on practical magic movie:

practical magic is kind of my favourite movie..i can watch it all over without bored..sally (sandra bullock) and gillian (nicole kidman) were awesome..later, after i knew that the movie was based on alice hoffman bestseller book, i hoped/wished that someday i can read the book..now i already read the book, my curiosity of how the book might be is answered..it's only that, what they showed in the movie was only half of the book, and another half was made up..but whenever i watch it, i think it just goes with the flow and sometimes, made it even better than the book..like everything was made sense..and now i think both of the movie and the book are just that good.. =p

My Rating: 4.5/5

the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by c.s. lewis

The summary:

Four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, are sent into the country to live with Professor Kirke (Diggory from the magician's nephew) because of the air-raids on wartime London. On their first morning, it pours with rain and they play hide-and-seek indoors. Lucy scrambles inside an old wardrobe full of coat. Narnia is in the grip of the White Witch's spells and it is always winter.It has been foretold that her reign will end when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit on the four thrones at the castle of Cair Paravel. So the Witch has made sure that anyone who sees a human in Narnia will tell her straight away - or be turned into stone. Lucy is the first person to find Narnia, bewildered and excited, she told her brothers and sister, and not surprisingly, they don't believe her story, especially as the wardrobe remains obstinately a wardrobe. However, the children do go back into Narnia when they least expect it and find everything just as Lucy described—only perhaps more real and more frightening. The kindly Mr. and Mrs. Beaver keep them safe from the White Witch's secret police—but there is a traitor in their midst and the four children soon discover that only Aslan can protect them from the terrifying danger that threatens to destroy them all..

My thought on book the and the movie:

i love both of the book and the movie..actually, i watched the movie first then i read the book..The movie was very entertaining and i kind of got my mood to read the book afterward..I like the Narnia Chronicles very very much.. in fact, i made a lot of searches to buy the books back then.. well, you know, it's way too difficult when you are in a country side and take a few hours to go to the city just to find books..only that two years back, i knew how to buy books from online..ha! kind of funny really..reading the second book of the chronicles, i also has the same feeling like the 1st one..since i like fantasy read, it's easier to imagine or fantasizing their adventurous journey to safe Narnia..what i like most of all is of course Mr. Tumnus the faun (he's so cute..) and Aslan the Lion (i like Liam Neeson voice cast for him by the way =p)..wait, i think i love all the talking animals, and the children except the White Witch (i like the costumes though..)

what can i say more when the book and the movie are really fascinating..?

My rating: 4.5/5