Customer Reviews

Gallows Hill

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This was my first Lois Duncan novel. I thought it was excellent! The book was very suspenseful and gave tons of descriptive detail, as well as lots of feelings and emotions in the characters. The story is about a girl named Sarah that has just moved from a town called Ventura,California. She moves to a small little town called Pine Crest that seems nice on the outside, but is really twisted and hidden with unbearable lies underneath. Sarah is asked to take part in a school fundraiser, a carnival and is asked to be a gypsy that tells fortunes, by the school jock. She uses an old paper weight as her glass ball, but later she discovers that she can see people's secrets and predict the future! I don't want to give the book away, but something terrible happens.. sending lies, mischeif,backstabbers,magic, and witches into the small quiet town of Pine Crest. I really enjoyed this novel, it was a great thriller! Next I will be reading one of her books that I ordered off the internet, called Daughter's of Eve. I suggest you try reading this book or one of her many novels, she is truely a GREAT writer!

This book really touches the heart as it tingles the spine. I felt for heroine Sarah as she is haunted by the memories of young Betty Parris, who triggered the Salem Witch Hunt, and persecuted by her classmates. I almost cried when no one believed what she said about the drawing of the noose and about the dead crow.
Another thing I loved was her relationship with the large-bodied-but-kindhearted-and-cute Charlie. That really touched my heart because I too was in love with a generously-sized gentleman.
This book is well-crafted and entertaining and just plain excellent. Buy two copies. You'll wear out the first from reading it so much. Lois D. does it again. I think all her "teen-suspense" books are great, even though I said goodbye to my teenhood some years ago.

This book is great. No it was perfect. It was full of suspence. The ending was suprising. (I read the ending many times!) I think this is one of her best. I read three of her books. They are Stranger With My face,A Gift Of Magic and this one. Well this is my order in how they go(for rating):

#1: Stranger With My Face ang Gallows Hill(So I cheated, I couldn't chose between them!)

#2: A Gift Of Magic

I am going to read Daughters Of Eve next. I'll tell you what I think of that book after I'm done.

While I agree that this is an excellent story, the kindle version of this book is so full of misspelled words that it makes it very difficult to read. Every page has misspelled words. I bought this for my niece to enjoy (and introduce her to Kindle) but had to keep helping her figure out what each of the misspelled words were suppose to be. In many places throughout the story, the word "die" is used where "the" is suppose to be. I also bought her the other Lois Duncan book, I hope that it is better. I'm afraid that this was a poor choice for an introduction to Kindle for her.

This was really a good book. Lois Duncan used a lot of detail in this book. The plot was simple, and believable. A girl from sunny California who gets stuck in nowhere-ville because of a sudden lapse of judgement from her mother. What really gets to me is how narrow minded the people in book are. In fact, they pissed me off so much with their absurd narrow ideas that I felt like chucking the book across my room, but I couldn't because I was so caught up in the story. Seriously, you're labeled as a "witch" and discriminated on just because you played the role of a gypsy? Who in their right mind would burn down a store just because they sell a different kind of music and different religious ideas? This book seriously made me wonder if people are like that these days

A Review by Tiffany

This story is based on a girl named Sarah who is asked to be a Fortune Teller at the up and coming Halloween Carnival by Eric, she tells him no but he keeps on persisting. Later on Charlie her soon to be step brother informs Sarah that he lived during the Salem Witch Trials and said "You were there too Sarah." She asks why and he says "You'll find out." Close to the end Eric takes Sarah to a "party" when their actually going to "Gallows Hill."

I liked the part where they're about to hang her when Charlie interrupts her peers from hanging her. Also I liked it when she was reading a book about the Salem witch Trials and saw her name as the people who were hung. I just liked the whole book. This can relate in today's world because they judged Sarah for what she looked like and not who she was.

I recommend this book for young adults because there is some swearing and some hijinx that parents wouldn't want their children to read it. I give this book 5 stars because of its intensity and it's insight on the witch trials during the 18th century. I would want to read this book again because it's the best book I've ever read.

Sarah Zoltanne, a normal California girl, must face her destiny when her mother decides to move their family to Pine Crest in Gallows Hill, by Lois Duncan. Pine Crest is one big creepy city with one big creepy attitude: my way or the high way. When Sarah portrays an accurate fortune selling gypsy at a school carnival, her peers start to think that she is a witch. Sarah is mistreated at school and at home by her mother's new boyfriend, and is miserable in Pine Crest. On top of that, Sarah can't figure out why she can see images and events in the fake crystal ball that come true. She also begins to have vivid dreams about the Salem witchcraft trials, which she thinks has something to do with her terrible situation. Sarah teams up with another school reject named Charlie to try to right the terrible wrongs that are going on around them before it is too late...

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with a thirt for mystery and suspense and a big imagination.

This book was exciting yet suspensful tale that was drawn out very long and strange. The way the events took place in this story kept it flowing.I thought that the best character was Charlie. He saved Sarah and I think it as daring of him to do that. The reason why the book was strange was because of the Reincarnation. The book was drawn out because the same events happend a lot or to many examples. This book wasn't the best book I've ever read but it gave me a great view on the Salem Witch craft trails.

I remember about a yeart ago I saw a girl reading a book by Lois Duncan it was "Gallows Hill" and she looked pretty into it so I went out about bought it. Bellvie me I wasn't dissapointed. Gallows hill tells the story about Sarah, she dosen't know why but when she "volenteers" to do fortune telling at the school lfair she can actually see the future in the paperwieght. The problem is people arn't really enjoying her gift...

Gallows Hill is the most recent of Lois Duncan's young adult suspense novels, published just when I was deciding that she was probably never going to write another one. It is one of my favorites, though I don't know if that's because I read it after reading her other books. It is the story of Sarah Zoltanne, a 17-year-old high school senior who moves to the tiny town of Pine Crest, Missouri, with her mother, who has fallen in love with Ted Thompson, a local teacher with two kids of his own. Sarah is immediately faced with the problems of starting school in a small close-knit community in her senior year, as well as dealing with two stepsiblings and being an outsider, not to mention the terrible nightmares and visions the place gives her.

Her only friend is Charlie Gorman, an overweight boy who is also an outsider in his own town. Researching the story of the Salem Witch Trials brings up terrible visions for Sarah, and the students at school terrorize her, believing that she is a witch. Eventually she realizes that she is remembering memories from a past life as nine-year-old Betty Parris, who triggered the Salem Witch Hunt 300 years earlier. Many of the students in the town, including Charlie, have been reincarnated from that lifetime, and have come together to repeat the incident as a way of teaching the lessons that people didn't quite get the first time around.

Duncan put an incredible amount of research into this book, and she does a fantastic job of weaving a fast-paced modern story with history. She even inspired me to read some other historical fiction on Salem, which is usually not something I read. Readers will share Sarah's discomfort in her brand-new stepfamily, especially with her stepsister, 16-year-old Kyra. They will also itch to throttle Eric, the smooth-talking, two-timing golden boy who convinces Sarah to tell fortunes at the school carnival.

The hardest part about Gallows Hill is knowing that Sarah is telling the truth when no one believes her. Everyone, including the principal at her school and her own mother, think she is exaggerating when she tells them about the crow left in her locker and people spying on the house. Sarah goes through this ordeal with a minimum of support - just Charlie. It can be near impossible to believe in yourself when no one else does.

The flashbacks, too, are done very well. The modern-day teenagers who have been reincarnated all play strong roles in Sarah's life, just as they did in little Betty Parris' in Salem. The final scene, when Kyra and Eric kidnap Sarah and threaten to hang her because she is a witch, is powerful and frightening. Readers will feel like they are watching the flickering fire and hearing the sound of New Age music as the students put a noose around Sarah's neck.

Duncan also pulls together some utterly beautiful writing - "It's Governor Phips, Sarah thought, hovering between lifetimes, before she realized that it was Ted Thompson who was removing the noose from her neck and lowering her into the upraised arms of her mother."

Like all of Lois Duncan's other young adult novels, this one is highly recommended.