Customer Reviews

Now You See Her

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Marcy Taggart has been hit with an emotional wallop, but she has not fallen. First her daughter was killed in a canoeing accident two years ago. The body was never found, so Marcy has never truly accepted her daughter's death. Her husband has moved on and left her for another woman. At fifty, Marcy is taking a tour of Ireland that was meant to be a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary trip. During a break at a pub, Marcy thinks she sees her daughter Devon walk past. Could her daughter still be alive and hiding out in Ireland to make a new start?

Marcy sets out on a journey to find her daughter and along the way meets others who either seem too eager to help her or want to hide vital information. It is hard to know who to trust and where the truth lies.

As a long time fan of Joy Fielding, I was thrilled to get an early copy of NOW YOU SEE HER to read and review. As a mature woman myself, it was refreshing to have a heroine who had been through life's trials. Ms. Fielding has crafted a mesmerizing novel with touches of melancholy and madness, but ultimately an ode to women who overcome adversity.

The Irish setting gave an extra dimension to the tale and the vivid descriptions made me feel I was right in the middle of the landscapes.

If you have never read Joy Fielding's books before, you need to start with this one and work your way through her back list.

The book's main character comes across as whiny and naive, not a character that you really care about. The book lacks suspence due to the fact that you are able to figure out the plot long before the character knows what is going on. All in all the story is too predictable and the characters too one dimensional.

I have read most of Joy Fielding's and enjoyed them, this one was just, blah. Marcy, the main character comes across as just plain dumb and you don't really care what happens to her. Her other characters are undeveloped and flat and you don't care about them either. Big disappointment!

I just can't say anything good about this book! I struggled and I struggled to get through this in the hopes that there may actually be some substance to this storyline. Weak plot, crazy character...in fact none of the characters were endearing in any way, shape, or form. I skipped through alot of the narrative towards the end just to say I finished this book and get it out of the way. I almost felt like ripping this book up and throwing it in the trash.

I regret the waste of the 2 days that it took me to finish this when I could have been reading another book.

Just absolutely horrible....Joy....get it together cuz this certainly wasn't.

Two years ago in a boating accident in Georgian Bay near Toronto, her daughter Devon allegedly drowned, but her body was not recovered. That tiny hope keeps fifty year old recently divorced Canadian Marcy Taggart unable to find closure as she and Devon last saw one another in a regretful scenario; thus the bereft mother clings to and prays for a miracle that her Devon purposely vanished.

Instead of her silver anniversary with Peter, he found solace with another woman, as their marriage ended when Devon disappeared. Thus instead of going with Peter as planned; Marcy travels to Ireland alone to temporarily escape from her mind-numbing grief. In Cork while on a guided tour, she sees a girl she believes is her Devon. She begins a quest to find the girl, but someone ransacks her hotel room followed by warning to leave or else. However, this is her daughter so she refuses to quit her search for the girl who may be Devon.

At times over the top of Knockboy, Marcy's desperation and intense feelings of guilt and regret make this a powerful thriller as her need for closure leads her into all sorts of sinister trouble. Her new companions add eccentric entertainment but fail to add to a mother grieving the loss of her daughter. Marcy's quest leads to a taut tale of danger, but it is her personal tension ripping her soul apart that turns Now You See Her into a great read.

Harriet Klausner

I have read all of Joy Fielding's books, and while some were better than others, they were all very good. I was really looking forward to her latest. What a disappointment. Marcy is an idiot and the whole set up with the two "strangers" both of whom she becomes somewhat involved with, is forced. The ending is over the top (and not in a good way). Joy clearly spent time in Ireland because much of the book reads like a tour book of history and sights. Best advice - skip this one.

Marcy Taggart is in Ireland on her second honeymoon. She happens to be alone, since her husband informed her that he was leaving her for the golf pro at their country club. That hurt, but it's an injury secondary to what broke her heart two years ago: their 21-year-old daughter, Devon, died. Devon's body was never found after her canoe was discovered floating upside down in the river.

Now, as Marcy attends a tour in Cork, her mind wanders. On a break before her tour resumes, she decides to have a cup of tea in a pub. As an extraordinarily handsome young waiter takes her order, a man named Vic Sorvino, another member of the tour, asks if he can join her. He seems pleasant enough. Their conversation is interrupted by Marcy's phone; her sister, Judith, is calling her. As Marcy talks, defending her decision to go alone on what was to be her second honeymoon, she sees someone through the window. The shocking sight causes her to jump to her feet. She just saw her daughter! Devon is alive, Marcy realizes. She is here, in Ireland, the country her father always promised to take her to visit.

Marcy races from the pub, chasing the young woman who must be her own child. But the street is filled with tourists and drizzly with rain. She can't find her. When Judith, still on the phone, insists that the girl can't be Devon, Marcy tells her to go to hell and tosses the phone in the river. She continues to chase the elusive figure.

When she gives up --- just temporarily --- she's amazed to see Vic, concerned and helpful, appear. The last thing Marcy wants is a romantic entanglement, but she can't help noticing what a sympathetic and attractive man he is. It hardly matters, though. Nothing does except finding her daughter, who is miraculously alive. There are reasons why Devon might want a new start to a totally different life, Marcy knows, but that certainly doesn't mean she won't find her. Now she is on a mission in Ireland: to unravel clues leading to Devon. As she makes her plans, she shares a meal with Vic, which leads to sharing her story with him. Yet, when she heads back to Cork, she travels alone. This is something Marcy must do on her own.

After settling into a room in a bed and breakfast, Marcy returns to the pub. She finds Liam, the waiter who had been taking her order, when she spots her daughter. When she shows Devon's photograph to him, a waitress notices. "She looks a bit like Audrey, don't she?" the woman asks, mentioning that the young lady she is speaking of is friends with the nanny of a local family and suggests Marcy talk to the nanny. While Marcy knows she must follow every clue, she is also afraid to scare off any friend of Devon's. After all, what if Devon doesn't want to be found?

As Marcy sleuths through Ireland, she learns much Irish lore and history. Author Joy Fielding paints a vivid atmosphere surrounding the driven Marcy. Fielding is in prime storyteller mode as she reels her audience in, depicting her heroine as slightly off-kilter and leading us to wonder (as does Marcy herself) if Marcy has seen her daughter or if she's mentally unbalanced. NOW YOU SEE HER is an intriguing and suspenseful tale that is likely to make readers squirm, even as they compulsively turn the next page.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

Whatever made Ms. Fielding think it was tasteful to take a frightening story (the disappearance or death of a daughter) and "lighten" it with moments of slapstick (the policeman who says "we must stop meeting like this", for example)? The story was silly. It felt like she was trying to prove something with the main character (how sexy she is, men fall all over her, etc.) and why did she mention her hair so often? I was glad I borrowed, not purchased this book.

As Marcy sits in a local pub in Ireland on what was to be her 2nd honeymoon she sees her daughter pass by on the street. The thing is her Bipolar daughter went missing two years earlier after her boat was found floating in a bay. Devon's body was never found. Convinced Devon is in alive in Ireland Marcy begins a frantic search with the help of a handsome young bartender, an older American traveler, and a lonely overworked nanny. Of course, Marcy becomes victim to her own desperation with a series of obstacles that prevents her from finding Devon.

What I found most appealing wasn't the mystery of is Devon alive or not - but the internal battle Marcy endures throughout the story which reaches a remarkable crescendo in the end. A mother consumed with grief and guilt and a mother who has never accepted her mentally ill daughter's fate. All explained in flashbacks. Towards the end of the novel as she is once again waiting to find out if her daughter is really in alive in Cork, Marcy experiences quick flashes of dialogue from her husband, her sister, her daughter, her new acquaintances in Cork and even herself. Well written! It was a pivotal moment. When Marcy finally reads a note from Devon - get out the tissue! Is Devon "REALLY" alive? I suggest you read the book or listen to the audio. Although not very suspenseful, a very good story to listen to - read by Justine Eyre. Eyre reads the novel extremely well! Characters were easily distinguished and I enjoyed the Irish accents.

Marcy Taggart is a middle-aged woman whose husband has recently left her. They had been planning a second honeymoon in Ireland, and, since it's been paid for, Marcy decides to go by herself. She's sitting in a Dublin pub when, through the window, she spots a young woman who's a ringer for her daughter Devon, who committed suicide 2 years ago. She takes off in pursuit, only to lose sight of her when she is run down by a bicyclist. Convinced that Devon is not dead at all, but alive and well and living in Ireland, Marcy sets out to track down her beloved child.

The picture is a complicated one, because Devon seemed to have inherited her grandmother's bipolar disorder, and Marcy is still trying to come to terms with all the ramifications. Alone in Dublin, still in distress over the break up of her marriage, when she meets an amiable fellow tourist, Vic from Chicago, she sets caution to the wind and embarks upon a holiday affair with him. Marcy is also flattered by the attentions of the sexy young man who serves her at the pub.

That's the set-up to this novel of is-she-or-isn't-she ---- crazy, that is. For Marcy has been unhinged since her daughter's disappearance, and, as she makes her way through the days, she routinely hears the voices of her husband, her sister, and her long-departed mother. She's a woman on a mission, and having an affair with a virtual stranger is the safest of the choices and decisions that Marcy makes in her quest to find Devon. I've avoided Joy Fielding's work, believing her to be too "romance-y" for my taste, but Now You See Her has shown me that, yes, there's an element of romance here, but there's also a stronger element of mystery, psychology, and adventure. Marcy is clearly in need of some psychotherapy, but sometimes her instincts are right on, and she lives through her Irish adventure and comes out stronger in the end. I enjoyed Now You See Her, even the unbelievable parts, and will now investigate some of Ms. Fielding's other titles.