Customer Reviews

The Arrangement

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to respectfully disagree with Tracey on this one. I've read just about every Suzanne Forster novel, and I think this is one of her best efforts. When people suggest that The Arrangement is Hitchcockian in nature, they are not kidding.

Over the years I have watched Forster evolve from series romance to romantic suspense to her current book, The Arrangement, and while there is a lovely dark and steamy romance in this current novel, where she really shines is in the way she has woven such an intricate web of mystery, suspicion and jeopardy for the characters, including emotional jeopardy.

The Arrangement is the sort of novel that pulls you in on page one and wraps its incredible atmosphere around you until it has completely pulled you into the story. Just when you feel you have it all worked out, it delivers a solid and believable twist that leaves you breathless. One of the plot reversals was nothing less than mind blowing, and that's not overstating it.

I will not go into the details of the story because that might spoil it but I can say that the ending of this novel had one of the best surprises I've read in a long time, and every little twist and turn was tied up in a way that made absolute sense.

For what it's worth, I thought that her novel The Lonely Girls Club was going to be Suzanne's best suspense novel for a long time to come, but I was wrong about that. For me, The Arrangement was nothing less than smack-down brilliant. I highly recommend it.

The Arrangement creates a heart chilling tale of suspense by adding echoes of some of the best suspense classics into a new context that will delight readers. The plot, characterization and detours are subtly prepared but this book is so much more than a well-written book!

Andrew Villard's wife had disappeared at sea three days ago when he spots something shiny while searching for her. He pulls a near lifeless body out of the ocean. Realizing that the shiny bracelet on her wrist belongs to his wife Alison Fairmont Villard, he saves her life and hires the best plastic surgeons to reconstruct her reef-battered face from photographs. Alison wakes up in the hospital with a case of amnesia. She does not recognize her face nor the man who calls himself her husband. Circumstances force her to trust him and accept the scandalous arrangement he offers --- even though her intuition balks at the idea. She has her own secrets to hide. When an FBI agent Tony Bogart appears, he is determined to prove Andrew's guilt in Alison's accident. With Tony's personal vendetta as motivation, no hidden evidence is safe. Can the arrangement protect her or has she created an even more deadly threat by accepting it?

Foster's portrayal of a severely dysfunctional families is heart-chilling. Every character, whether primary or secondary, has a role to play in a carefully prepared and unfolding nexus of suspense. Beyond the literary and stylistic perfection of this novel, The Arrangement strikes the heart of suspense fans with familiar echoes in a new chord. Take my favorite two Alfred Hitchcock movies, my favorite Daphne DuMaurier novel and add just a tiny twist of my favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne short story...mix it around and add more, transform it and you have Suzanne Forster's The Arrangement --- and yet Foster's novel is so much better than any of those mentioned above! Seen together with these classics, the genius of Forster's writing becomes even more apparent. Her transformation of familiar themes into a new story entirely new is as satisfying as the suspense!

In Suzanne Forster's The Arrangement, no detail is gratuitous. In comparison to lesser suspense writers who substitute gore, violence and sex for suspense, this novel needs no substitution or addition to thrill suspense fans. Now, there are definitely murders here, a kinky scene (which absolutely must be there for the perfect & satisfying resolution) and definitely some disturbed people, but this novel is true suspense at its best. Each detail is carefully prepared, each character's secrets add to the heightening suspense, no detour is superfluous but rather adds to the vision of the disturbed world. The carefully prepared trails twist and turn to the perfect resolution. Magnificent!

Don't forget to read the dedication before AND after completing this novel. Heartwarming.

After falling off her husband's yacht six months ago, Alison Fairmont Villard is lucky to be alive. Her face was repaired to fix the damage caused by the battering of the rocks. Her husband does not touch her, after surgery they had made a deal ¾Andrew would let her recover and she would share the details of that night with him. Every night she has nightmares. Every day she wakes up and wonders whom she truly is, and whom can she trust. The partial amnesia clouds matters even further.

Andrew Villard has a shadowy past. For six months he has watched the woman who he calls wife. They have an agreement that they have both stood by. Now complications have arisen due to Alison's mother summoning them to return to the scene of the accident

Both hope to find answers to their own questions. They each have demons they need to take care of. Andrew makes an offer that Alison has no choice but to accept. But can they find the answers to their own questions or will it tear things apart even further. Who can they trust? Neither can escape the consequences of their decisions.

The Arrangement is one of those books that captivates you from the moment you start reading. It keeps the tension at a heightened level that kept me turning the pages to find the answers to the questions raised in my mind at the beginning. It is incredibly engrossing; the intrigue with a dash of romance is the perfect continuous mix to make the reader glad they are reading The Arrangement. This is a book that I highly recommend.

Barb
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Alison Fairmont wanted to be a recording star. She had hoped with her marriage to Andrew Villard, that he would give her a jump start in her career. Andrew thought differently. Alison didn't have any musical talent, and when Andrew told her that, she did not take it well. Andrew asked Alison for a divorce. She was very calm and agreed to the divorce.

Alison was lost at sea while Andrew was sailing his yacht. He was heading back to port when a storm approached. Andrew went below deck to get some life preservers. When he went back on deck, Alison was gone. She had fallen overboard. Andrew and Coast Guard had formed a search party. Andrew and volunteers found a woman floating on the surface near the rocks. Her face was bloody, for all practical purposes, she was unrecognizable. As crewmen went to pick her up, Andrew was able to identify Alison. She was wearing the bracelet he had given her.

Two subplots are simultaneously occurring--Alison lost at sea, and Butch's murder. FBI Agent Tony Bogart went home to unofficially investigate his brother Butch's murder and Marnie Hazelton was spotted jumping off the edge of Satan's Teeth cliffs at the same time.

I recommend The Arrangement. It was suspenseful throughout, and the plot was intriguing. I was engrossed with all the characters. There was a surprising twist in the last chapter that left me bewildered. Suzanne Forster's best book thus far.

Law enforcement assumes Andrew Villard killed his wife Alison while they were at sea on their yacht. To prove his innocence, he feels he must find Alison; miraculously he does alive on a reef. She suffers from amnesia and bad facial battering. He has her visage reconstructed back to a picture of her.



However, Andrew knows someone from her family wanted him dead although he is unsure who. So six months later he persuades Alison that it is time to reconcile with her mom and brother, who cut her off when she married. Alison agrees but fears what her family will see as her memory is coming back to her. At the same time FBI agent Tony Bogart investigates the disappearance of Marnie Hazelton, who he believes killed his brother; the clues take him to Alison and her extended family.



This exhilarating Hitchcockian noir stars no truly likable character as everyone has a nasty grudge that overwhelms every other emotion even that of Alison and Andrew falling in love. The story line is filled with twists as nothing is quite what it seems though everything is in plain sight. Readers who appreciate a gripping well written dark thriller will enjoy learning the truth, nothing but the truth.



Harriet Klausner

This book starts out with a desperate search by a man (Andrew) to find his wife (Allison) who apparently fell from their boat during a storm. He finds what appears to be his wife on a bunch of boulders and has her brought to a hospital for emergency surgery. Her face is smashed beyond recognition but she has an odd skin discoloration on her neck. Thinking nothing of it, Andrew tells the doctors to remove it and also to try reconstructing her face. He gives them photos of his wife to help and after several months of surgeries "Allison" is restored to fairly much how she looked before.

But as the audience can guess it is not really "Allison" but because of an "arrangement" she made with Andrew, she will pretend to be Allison while Andrew can look for the real Allison. Sounds complicated? It gets worse. Allison and Andrew are invited to Allison's mother's estate for a visit. The estate is close to where the real Allison disappeared. They agree to go because it will be easier for Andrew to investigate.

When they get there "Allison" is constantly under suspicion, especially from the real Allison's slimy brother Brett. To make matters worse an FBI man (Tony Bogart) is investigating the death of his brother, who was murdered on the night of Allison's murder. He has several suspects but principally, he suspects Andrew. In the meantime it appears that someone is trying to murder the fake Allison.

This book holds you from start to finish and it is not till way near the end that the reader starts to get some answers. What makes this work is the interaction between the characters is compelling especially between Andrew and the fake Allison. Andrew never really loved Allison and her fake is way different then her in demeanor and this attracts Andrew. The author keeps throwing in little teasers as to whether or not they will become a "real" couple and it keeps the reader on edge.

OH! I remember! It's almost a complete carbon copy of Sandra Brown's "Mirror Image." I suppose that happens sometimes, but kinda ruins the book a bit for me.

There wasnt one redemptive feature in any of the characters in this book. I was hoping for a romantic suspense and all I got was disfunctional people - everyone of them! I can get that in my everyday job!!!

The hero was perplexing. Did he have an ulterior motive to get 'Allison' to reunite with her mother? Or was he planning a con game of his own and hurting her severely in the process. He seemed to use her as all the characters did. However, I read on, hoping to get a Hitchcock-like thriller. The only scenes worth reading were the 'sex' scenes. This is my first and last read of Ms. Forster.

I'm not going to go over the summary, because many people have already...but I would like to share my comments on this book.

The "likes:" The book is well written, there's some spicy romance, and it's suspenseful to the point that the audience has to keep reading.

The "dislikes:" The romance was a little trashy. I like romance details, but I don't want to actually know all of the explicit details of characters having sex. On a different note, there was almost too much suspense. I appreciate the fact that it kept the readers needing more, but her suspenseful build-up for 450 pages was a bit much. Also, the porn references and incest-nature of one of the characters was not necessary. His hatred for his sister was enough...we didn't need an extra complexity between their relationship. The ending was a little too "wrapped up," and not fully believable and the epilogue was cheesy.

I'm trying not to add a spoiler, so I'll ask it this way:
Why did the main character need to do what Tony Bogart told her to do with her brother, at the end?
That didn't seem believable.

The author, for me, was an auto-buy for many years. Her male characters were well written and her female leads were witty and resourceful. In keeping with the "recovery" of this books' female lead everything in this book felt heavy, weary and with that overwhelmiong sense of doom that someone or something unpleasant was waiting to jump out and say "boo"! Right from the start, the author's choice of with-holding key information was more annoying than suspensful--but there is an audience for horror movies and readers who enjoy being led around by the nose. If you need to kill some time and have a lot of patience--this may be the book for you.