Customer Reviews

The Dollmaker

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You'll never look at dolls in quite the same way again after reading THE DOLLMAKER!

Seven years ago, Ruby was kidnapped, leaving behind the shattered marriage of her parents, Claire Doucett and Dave Creasy. Both Claire and Dave have struggled to pick up the pieces of their own lives, but now the past is pulling them back together. The appearance of a portrait doll with the exact likeness of Ruby may be a clue to what happened to Ruby, if only anyone is willing to believe Claire. Will Dave help Claire discover what really happened to Ruby or will the secrets of the past destroy them all?

THE DOLLMAKER is perhaps the creepiest book I've read in a long time! Amanda Stevens does a superb job at creating an eerie atmosphere that doesn't rely on gore or gratuitous violence. Instead, the tension is carefully built up with some truly horrifying twists to keep readers on their toes. While the reader will likely deduce aspects of the ending, there are some wickedly clever surprises in store that make this an absolutely phenomenal thriller.

Claire and Dave are not the usual sort of heroes for a thriller. Both are tortured by their past choices. Claire is in the midst of her second divorce and still sees Ruby everywhere she turns, while Dave struggles one day at a time to defeat the urge to pick up the bottle. Their private battles make THE DOLLMAKER a stronger novel as Claire and Dave seek their own sort of redemption after the loss of both Ruby and their marriage.

THE DOLLMAKER is an edgier story than many may expect as the author strives hard to remain true to the story and the characters. Those looking for the typical romantic suspense thriller will probably be a bit shocked by this story as Amanda Stevens definitely steps outside the box with this one. THE DOLLMAKER certainly has me eyeing dolls in an entirely different light! Fantastic job, Ms. Stevens!

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

The Dollmaker is one of the best thrillers I have read in years! Stevens creates a perfect mix of allowing the reader to have enough clues --- and even to hear the voice of the perpetrator --- to understand the interlacing psychological aspects behind the characters and to maintain the suspense. Nevertheless, she withholds just enough to peak the reader's interest on every page. I was drawn into her characters, their weaknesses and depth and watching them change as the story developed. Even though the reader knows certain aspects of the ending from the very beginning, the suspense builds and builds. The ending has unexpected, shocking surprises. Everything is not all tied up with a pretty bow at the end, and yet the reader feels very satisfied. The ending was well-planned....a surprise and one also true to the characters.

A doll....normally such an innocent charming item certainly gets transformed here! Delightfully creepy!

Even days after finishing the last page, I am still delighted with this book. The imagery, the haunting Southern setting and the amazing writing captured my interest then and now. Amanda Stevens keeps all the spine tingles and darkness AND did it without crossing that line into gratuitous (and often boring) gore and violence too common in lesser works in the genre. Bravo!

Warning: This book may cause you to remain awake until 3 or 4am reading.

I've been an Amanda Stevens fan a long time, but this book blew me away. The villain is excellently crafted and the protagonists literally jump off the pages with their realism and emotional depth. Stevens handles a distrubing situation that could have come right out of the morning newspaper with credence and spellbinding suspense. Don't miss this one.

4.5 out of 5 stars

The cover of The Dollmaker was what first drew me, its shadowy blue and green tones, and the doll's face, particularly the eye. I found it mesmerizing and was drawn to it many times before I bought it. And when I did, I wasn't disappointed. It's a story about tragic loss--the abduction of a child and the resulting destruction of a marriage.

Claire Doucett's life spins out of control from the moment she glimpses a doll that looks exactly like her missing daughter Ruby, right down to an identical birthmark on the doll's arm. To complicate matters, no one believes her and the doll mysteriously disappears.

Then Claire's ex-husband Dave, a former cop and alcoholic who is investigating the murder of a stripper, comes back to town. He's looking for answers in the stripper's death, but also searching for resolution in a cold case--one that has haunted him because it is linked to his daughter's disappearance.

The plot lines are woven meticulously, connecting then separating, making for a very interesting read. The New Orleans setting is perfect (especially with the Katrina references and haunting visuals), the characters compelling and flawed, and the pacing is dead on, until the end where I felt that the resolution was a bit rushed. Everything happened so fast, I lost a bit of the emotional connection, which is why I didn't give this book 5 stars.

Regardless, Amanda Stevens has penned a spine-tingling story about love, loss, lies, guilt and family secrets. This is a great read for that cold winter night. I highly recommend it! And I'll never look at a doll the same way again.

--Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
Author of Divine Intervention

Claire Doucett's life hasn't been the same since her daughter, Ruby, was abducted seven years earlier in New Orleans. Neither Claire nor her ex-husband, Dave, ever really got over the kidnapping of their daughter. But without ever knowing for sure what had happened to their child, how could they ever be the same? While Claire spent the intervening years making an attempt to put her life back together by remarrying, Dave tried to numb his pain and guilt in a bottle. Neither was very successful.

At the opening of the story, Claire is once again in the middle of a divorce and attempting to get her own life together. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband believes she's obsessed with finding her daughter alive and well, but Claire knows she could never walk away from the possibility of finding out what happened to Ruby. When she spies a doll in the window of a New Orleans shop, she is struck by the uncanny likeness the doll bears to her daughter - down to the pink, frilly dress Ruby was wearing the day she disappeared.

Claire approaches Dave to help her get some answers that she's certain will give her some closure, and he agrees, even though he's already been drawn into another investigation tied to the one he was working on when their daughter disappeared. He sifts through the shattered and sometimes murky world of a post-Katrina New Orleans, disturbing more than a few old ghosts along the way.

Amanda Stevens takes the reader on a journey that is, at turns, heart-breaking, bone-chilling, and hopeful - a psychological thriller that will stay with you long after you finish the book.

Amanda Stevens is a prolific writer of popular novels who has taken a BIG step forward with The Dollmaker. She creates a world which will involve you completely. It's written from a feminine point of view to an extent, but her male characters are absolutely authentic. The interactions, good, evil, painful, desperate, loving and more are real.

She just knows what she's writing about, and she makes you know it too. You don't have to have been in the South or in New Orleans to appreciate this, but I have, and her settings are complex, detailed and accurate.

It's a story of love, loss, deception, and psychological terror, without relying in any way on cheap thrills. Highly recommended!

I'm an avid reader... I read daily, especially horror or suspense novels. Amanda Stevens was a new author for me. I hadn't ever read anything written by her before, and later learned that before venturing her skills with The Dollmaker, she wrote mostly "romantic suspense"... not my cup of tea. I came across Ms. Stevens through the wonderful world of Myspace, and her novel caught my attention immediately.

The Dollmaker is set in the bayous of south Louisiana in Terrebonne Parish, a place I myself call "home". I live in a Houma, Louisiana which is in Terrebonne Parish, and referred to a few times in this book. I read Ms. Stevens' synopsis and instantly couldn't wait for the book to be released. My eagerness for this book was justified as soon as I opened the cover and began to read the first page. The story of Claire Doucett and her heart wrenching search for her daughter that has been missing for seven years draws you in never lets go. I wish I would have had the time to sit down and read it straight through cover to cover. I hated to have to put this book down. The characters are well developed, her settings wonderfully described, and her story fantastically told.

Being a resident of the places she describes, and a frequent visitor of New Orleans, I could picture exactly where she was describing, as though I was an overseer standing across the street watching the plot unfold. For me personally, a creepy tale of obsession and need, covet and longing, desire and attraction was raised a notch when I could look outside my own window and see the settings she describes in this novel. Makes you want to check the lock on your door just one more time when turning in for the night....

Ms. Stevens did a wonderful job of making me feel conflicting emotions about the villain, the Dollmaker. I found myself feeling emotions of both outrage and pity. By the end of this novel, I found myself wanting more, wishing there was already a sequel waiting for me to now pick up and begin reading. I am thrilled Ms. Stevens made a jump to this genera of fiction and will personally continue to read future novels she will publish.

Amanda Stevens has launched herself into the category of great storytellers of horror and suspense, such as Steven King, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, Jack Ketchum, and John Saul... my personal favorites. I hope you will do your own self a favor, and give Amanda Steven's The Dollmaker a try.

With "The Dollmaker", author Amanda Stevens conjures up James Patterson and Anne Rice in this creepy gothic chiller of a novel. Making the leap from the romantic suspense yarns for which she's known to psychological suspense thriller, Stevens steers clear of the throwaway potboiler and crafts a well-constructed, multi-layered plot ripe with police corruption, child abduction, and enough creepy dolls to make one shudder at the next mention of Madame Alexander. It's John Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" meets "House of Wax" - minus Paris Hilton with just a hint of John Grisham's Southern sensibilities.

Artist Claire Doucett and ex-husband Dave Creasy have never fully recovered from their heartbreak following the disappearance of their 7-year-old daughter Ruby. Seven years after the child's vanishing and presumed abduction, both are battling demons - one a loveless marriage and visions of their missing child around every corner, the other alcoholism and a failed law enforcement career. When Claire spots a portrait doll bearing an uncanny likeness to Ruby in the window of a Garden District collectibles shop, she becomes convinced that if she can trace the origins of the doll, she will finally learn the fate of their daughter. The ex-spouses wade through the baggage carousel of their past to join forces and soon embark upon a harrowing journey toward the closure they so desperately seek on many levels. Complicating matters are an unsolved murder with police cover-up implications and the titular psychopath who cuts a deadly path through the Louisiana landscape with his doll making tools.

Elements of "The Dollmaker" are reminiscent of cinematic horrors, and savvy genre fans will glimpse snippets of "Tourist Trap", "Happy Birthday to Me", "Dressed to Kill", and "Psycho". And while Stevens offers up intersexualism as a plot device that readers may initially bemoan as clichéd, she integrates the twist so well into a genuinely chilling back story that it ultimately works here. Her secondary characters are also fleshed out well enough to be integral to the story - whether on the periphery of the action or smack dab in the middle of it.

Stevens boasts a gift for rich, sensory-infused description that she is able to balance with page-turning action to precision. In "The Dollmaker", she has an acute awareness of the sights, smells, sounds, and textures of post-Katrina Louisiana - from the recovering French Quarter to the outlying bayous. Not since Anne Rice has a writer captured New Orleans in words with such skill. Stevens' knack for description extends beyond the geographical locales of the novel as she proves by imbuing the narrative with strong doses of realism. Whether depicting alcoholism or the mounting hopelessness in the days and months following the abduction of a child or the art of glass blowing, the reader is invited to step into the narrative and walk alongside the characters, making the reading experience more active than passive.

That the resolution (albeit ultimately satisfying) comes fast in relation to the buildup is but a minor criticism in what is otherwise a thrilling story. With "The Dollmaker", Amanda Stevens has fashioned a well-paced, spine-chilling tale of suspense in which the reader will find his or her chest tightening in anticipation and dread with each successive turn of the page.

There is something about this cover that I absolutely adore. When I first spotted it as the avatar of a MySpace friend, I fell in love. Knowing it's a book of suspense, I assumed it would be this spine-tingling, goosebump ride. Dolls have the ability to be very scary objects.

Then, one day while searching Harlequin's site, I came across MIRA, and OMG this book was one of them. Being a H/S line, I then assumed it would be a romantic suspense-heavy on the sappy, cheesy romance.

I should never assume. :wink:

Claire Doucett's daughter, Ruby, was kidnapped seven years ago. Now, Claire sees a doll in a shop window that resembles Ruby identically-including a tiny birthmark. No one believes her, so Claire turns to the one person who she thinks will, her ex-husband and Ruby's father, Dave Creasy. Together they unravel the past and hunt down a psychopath.

This is a very well-written, highly descriptive book. The characters are beautifully flawed, and I cried at the end. I found it very interesting that Claire wasn't introduced until chapter three. There is very little romance (some of which is off-page), which is perfectly fine, and sometimes preferable, for this suspense lover. It has a very rich setting (New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and the author's love for area is very obvious.

Being someone who dislikes a lot of description in general and setting description even more, these parts of the book actually dragged for me. As a matter of fact, I felt the entire book moved way too slow. On the blurb, it states the doll is stolen, the shop owner turns up dead and Claire turns to her ex-husband. The shop owner's body doesn't turn up until page 238. Before this, Claire and Dave had one very brief conversation.

I've also seen reviews and comments about this book stating it is a thriller and creepy. Up until the very last couple of scenes, I found there to be very little edge-of-your-seat suspense, and it certainly was never creepy or a thriller. I have to say this greatly disappointed me. The trailer for The Dollmaker was very chilling, and to my tastes, better than the actual book.

It is an enjoyable book, as long as you know what you are getting into. It is an easy, pleasant read, and despite my disappointment, I will gladly give her next book, The Devil's Footprints, a read.

I picked this book up on a recommendation, and I wasn't dissapointed. For what is Amanda Stevens's debut novel, this book was incredibly fast paced & hardly ever dropped a beat. I really liked how she made even the villains into complex & (for some of them) even sometimes sympathetic characters.

My only complaint is that the ending felt incredibly rushed in comparison to the rest of the book's pace. There was a lot that was left out & there was more than one question that was left unanswered. There was one specific plot element that was all but screamed out loud (I'll go into details in a comment under my review), yet the author did nothing with it. It just seemed a little unrealistic for such a thing to be, yet for that particular character to do nothing with it. Other than that, the book was fantastic. The ending is such a minor flaw in comparison to the rest of the book that you really don't mind. This book has "future blockbuster movie" written all over it.