Customer Reviews

Tainted

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Holly Barrett has not had the best of luck with men. Quiet, shy and serious, she studied more than she flirted in school. Now a single mom living in a small Cape Cod town with her beautiful young daughter Katy, Holly leads an uneventful life until one morning bus ride when a drop-dead gorgeous man sits next to her. Conversation leads to an impromptu side trip. Although their first unplanned date ends with a boom, the mysterious Englishman Jack Dane later sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind. Even her family cannot resist his charm. As Holly seeks to carve out a new life for herself and her daughter, disturbances interrupt the potential picture of wedded bliss. After abandoning Holly when she most needed him years, Katy's biological father re-enters the scene, causing friction to the newly formed family. Jack's parenting skills are awkward and clumsy at best. Despite these troubles, Holly truly shines with a new confidence now and her family seems whole. Are these bumps in the road just a normal process of bringing together a family or are they a sign of deeper trouble to come? Is Jack the wonderful man he appears? Does his unknown past hide a deep dark secret? Has Holly made a marriage in heaven or has she just given a dangerous man access to her family? How far will she go to protect those she loves?

Brooke Morgan's debut novel TAINTED is one amazing work of psychological suspense! Written in an easy to read beautiful prose style, TAINTED turns romantic fantasy into a shattering nightmare that sends chills through the spine. One can't help but fall for the characters. Holly could be any woman. The questions she asks are questions anyone would ask. Her hopes are our hopes. The scenes with her extended family warm the heart and her daughter Katy's innocence is the reader's innocence --- and yet through the author's clever use of perspective change, the reader sees the subtle warnings, the slight disjunctures that hint at trouble on the horizon. Skillful, emotional twists keep a reader glued to the pages but nothing can prepare a reader for the shocking truth as it unravels. Scene by scene, Brooke Morgan takes the reader on a wild journey of hope and fear as hints of Jack's mysterious past encroach upon the lives around her. What a perfect ending! Brooke Morgan knows how to deliver the final masterstroke that leaves a suspense lover delightfully stunned!

On each and every page, TAINTED is psychological suspense at its best. Rather than relying on gratuitous gore or horror for shock value, Brooke Morgan builds the suspense by delving into her characters' deepest dreams and fears. Each twist and turn, each change in point of view is expertly handled for maximum effect. Brooke Morgan reveals just enough to keep a reader on the the edge, but never too much or too early. TAINTED haunts the imagination long after the final word.

Brooke Morgan's TAINTED would make an excellent choice for stimulating book club discussions. The figure of Jack's present and past and more importantly the author's expert handling of all the questions and characters surrounding him pose fascinating questions while leaving readers room for reflection and animated discussion.

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

This book is very engrossing - the characters are well developed, the descriptions of the Cape are beautifully rendered, and the story has some real surprises. I couldn't wait to get home each night to continue reading it, to return to Shoreham and to get back into the lives of Holly and Jack. I found the juxtaposition of innocence and evil quite haunting, and I think Morgan's pace of unfolding the mystery was just right.
Interestingly, my husband and I rarely enjoy the same books, but we both loved this one, as did our daughter - it is a must read!

Brooke Morgan's debut novel, Tainted, is a thrill ride in a small, shoreline town in Massachusetts -- Shoreham -- as Holly Barrett meets the man of her dreams on a bus. Jack Dane is dashing, charming, and British -- an accent to die for -- but there is something below the surface that is not so inviting.

Holly's had a tough youth from getting pregnant at a young age to losing her parents and struggling as a single parent. Jack swoops in and casts a spell that she is unwilling to break, despite the objections of her family and friends and only knowing him for about three weeks. Morgan's writing is upfront and engaging, though at times chapters shift from the point of view of Holly, her five-year old daughter, her grandfather, and others.

Readers will eat up these pages, trying to uncover Jack's dark secrets, while at the same time wishing they could shake Holly into her right mind. At times, Holly is very naive about Jack and moves too quickly into a relationship, which can be attributed to her inexperience with men and her self-imposed isolation. However, there are a number of occasions where Holly sees clear red flags in Jack's behavior and chooses to ignore them, reminiscent of abused women. Morgan's debut novel, Tainted, is a solid thriller with many twists and turns that will have some readers guessing until the very end.

Tainted is well-written and the plot moves fairly swiftly. Morgan does a good job of introducing all of the characters and making each stand on their own. Katy, the child in the story, is the flattest character -- you get a couple of chapters from her perspective, but not enough description of her opinion of Jack as it develops.

The decisions that the main character, Holly Barrett, makes regarding the handsome stranger she meets on the bus are a bit far-fetched and certainly are not in keeping with what has been her history of very stable decisions regarding her and her daughter. The unlikely return of her child's father and the inference that this young graduate of Stanford who is heading to Harvard Law is now smitten with the uneducated mother of his child is nothing short of ridiculous....nice for a romance, but diminishes the believability of the story on many levels.

You can see the tragedy coming from a long way away, but the style and prose are good enough to keep you reading to the inevitable conclusion.

Its a good, suspenseful book that is hard to put down, but not one of my top 100 books ever read....and I'm always looking to add to that list!

Holly Barrett is a single mother to her 5 year old daughter Katy. They reside in Cape Cod near Holly's grandfather and, although her life isn't ideal, she is definitely a survivor and has made the best out of her situation in life. The three of them are a family.

Then one day Holly meets handsome, Englishman, Jack Dane. She is utterly charmed by him and after a whirlwind courtship he moves into her home and they are promptly married. Everything is fantastic for Holly... not only is she in love, but her daughter and grandfather both love Jack just as much as she does. But then Katy's father comes back into the picture and he is quickly suspicious of Jack's true motives. Where did he come from? Where is his family? Who are his friends? By the time Katy realizes something is amiss, it just might be too late.

I will forewarn you that Tainted starts off at a slow pace, but about 100 pages in you become quickly enmeshed in Holly's struggle to take control of her life. The characters Ms. Morgan creates are all fleshed out and you can definitely envision them as being someone you might know. Her descriptions of Cape Cod were fascinating.

I thought Holly was a great character although she did have her faults. I found her frustrating and too forgiving at times. There were many red flags indicating that Jack might not be as "wonderful" as he seemed but she carelessly looked them over. I did feel that she matured throughout the story, redeeming herself in my eyes. I also really liked some of the secondary characters. Holly's grandfather, Henry, was a favorite of mine. He was old and grumpy, but still a loving and caring fatherly figure towards Holly.

I was definitely taken in by this story and found myself at the edge of my seat... and I will confess that I found myself having a hard time putting it down... I mean, I had to sleep, but I picked it right back up the next morning and didn't put it down until I finished it. I thought the ending was superb and made up for any flaws I found along the way. This is a fantastic read for lovers of suspense and one I would definitely recommend.

Holly is a very smart plain-Jane who made the huge mistake of letting a popular boy in high school have his way with her on the beach one night. To her dismay she comes up pregnant. Sadly, the boy who knocked her up "Billy" takes off to college without a care in the world and leaves Holly to raise her daughter alone. Meanwhile Holly's parents die tragically and Holly is even more dismayed. Yet, Holly still has her wonderful caring Grandfather "Henry" to keep her on track. So years pass, Holly's daughter "Katy" is now 5 and Holly has settled into the life of Mother. Her parents left her their house on the coast outside of Boston where she lives next door to her Grandfather "Henry". Although Holly is comfortable in her life, she is lonely, and has started to believe she will never find love.

The story starts with Holly on a bus coming back from Boston. A man steps on board. A devastatingly handsome British man named Jack Dane. Jack sets beside Holly and of course she is smitten. Although, I thought he was weird from the start.
The problem is as book smart as Holly is she is foolish, naive, and desperate. In the first 3 chapters though I thought the writer did a very good job of opening up Holly's mind to the reader. She was likable and one could see why or how she thought as she did. As the story progresses though Holly becomes a deer in headlights. There are times when you want to throw the book across the room over her denial and foolhardiness.

Things move fast for the love birds, within three weeks he has moved in. Amazing seeing how he gets stranger and stranger each day. His borderline obsession with Holly's daughter Katy is what really unsettles you. The whole time you are flying through pages trying to figure out who he really is, what he really did back in England, because if there is one thing for certain - it's that Jack Dane did something very very bad.

Then the pot really gets stirred when you throw Billy Madison into the mix, the long lost father to Katy. He is back for the summer from Stanford and he wants more than anything to make up for lost time. To be Katy's father, to show Holly he isn't a deadbeat dad. Jack Dane isn't willing to let Billy move in on his new found family so easily though.

The chapters pass, each with a new insight into why Jack isn't what he appears and with that Billy and Holly's Grandfather are tipped off that something isn't right with the pciture.

Ok, so here are the spoilers, do not read on if you don't want to know the end or what secrets Jack Dane hides..........Jack Dane killed two twin girls when he was eleven with a cricket bat. The first one by mistake the second he beat to death because she wouldn't stop screaming. He went to prison and was let out when he was eighteen. His well to do family had disowned him and he couldn't shake the press in England. So he moved to the states. Where he met quite, shy, agreeable Holly. Jack isn't just messed up because he murdered the two twins, he is a psychopath. He doesn't like noise and is a stickler for order. He has no real emotions, just fake projections of what he thinks people want to see. When Henry does some digging he comes across Jacks' true self. Jack then murders Henry, which is a real shame, because Henry is the most likable character in the book. Henry is funny, honest, loving, and kind. He is so real he jumps off the page. Jack makes a break for it with Katy, leaving Holly behind with Billy to clean up the mess of her dead Grandfather. By the time Holly comes to her senses Jack is long gone.
The book comes to end when Holly grows some and heads out to find her daughter. Jack almost kills Katy forcing Holly to shot him in the head.

That's it in a nut shell.

Tainted by Brooke Morgan is a tense thriller about a single mother who is swept off her feet by a charming British man she meets by chance when he moves to her small town. He seems out of her league and too good to be true. Slowly she discovers that he has a great deal of secrets and is not who he claims to be. If you are looking for a good thriller to pass the time, this should fit the bill. It was somewhat predictable, and the main character may frustrate you at times with her gullibility, but overall it was pretty good for a thriller fix.

Brooke Morgan showcases her writing talent with a first time suspense novel set in Cape Cod. The story centers around Holly a 23 year-old, single mom who is struggling with the loss of her own parents while trying to raise her 5 year old daughter along with the help of her grandfather who lives next door. along comes Jack who literally plops into her life. British, handsome, and charming, Holly so hungry for love, falls completely head over heels in love. Jack is not at all what he appears and from here on out the blatant signs and red flags that there is something seriously and psychopathically wrong with this guy are all lost on Holly, who is about as gullible as they come. There are times when you literally want to slap some sense into her, if not for herself then most definitely for her young daughter whom she continually parades in front of the lion's jaws due to her own naivete. The story starts getting really entertaining about two thirds of the way through. The ending holds some good surprises and the best thing is the two-sides-of- the-story summary illustrated by the two characters introduced at the end. It was cleverly done in a sort of final argument courtroom drama style.

Suspense, thrills, racing hearts, and heartbreak are just a few words that I would use to summarize Tainted by Brooke Morgan. From beginning to end, I was utterly engrossed within the story, turning page after page to see what would happen next. Never was there a spot within the story that was lacking, nor anywhere were my attention was diverted from the story and its characters.

Tainted is one of those books that I can honestly and truly say that I loved the story and plot line, but felt very borderline with the main character. I have to admit to feeling incredibly frustrated with Holly, the main character. She seemed to be very submissive and willing to push aside many "odd" occurrences and very strange behavior, by Jack. The old saying "Love is Blind" definitely applies, though not in a good way. In retrospect, Ms. Morgan does a wonderful job portraying a psychologically disturbed man through Jack. My favorite characters are Henry, Holly's Grandfather, and Billy the father of Holly's daughter who skipped town when he found out that she was pregnant. Henry is such a delightfully spunky character with a wonderful soul, and Billy caught my appeal with his perseverance and desire to right the wrongs that he made in the past.

In addition to excellent characterization, Brooke Morgan does a marvelous job of bringing the scenery of Cape Cod to life. The reader feels as though they are there as each and every scene plays out. One rather unique aspect, I thought, was the fact that throughout Tainted, the author would take the reader into the minds of a character. This does not occur very often, but it was a very interesting twist and the transitions flowed rather smoothly, when they did occur.

Here are a couple of excerpts that stood out to me:

pg. 67

She heard the soft slap of a small series of waves hitting the beach, a subtle undertow from a passing ship. Even noise was quiet on nights like this, she thought. The crickets didn't chirp as shrilly, the hum of boat motors took on a lower tone. Everything was dampened down by the moisture and darkness.

"Someone once told me that you can't move forward if you're looking over your shoulder at the past. It sounds trite, I know." Jack took her hand in his. "But trite works sometimes."



pg. 143

"Jack. Please. Stop it. Those are my parents. They're what I have left of my parents."

Tears were now cascading down her face. This couldn't be happening. Not to them. They were happy. They were in love. Everything was going right. But the man who would hug her to him at night and tease her and excite her was starting at her with an impenetrable, unfeeling expression. She didn't know what to do, could only stand watching helplessly as he tied up the ends of the garbage bag and hauled it outside.

Holly could hear him take the top off the trash can, she could hear the sound of the bag full of pictures being thrown in. And the lid crashing back down.


Tainted is an excellent book for any reader looking for a suspenseful read and one that will keep them hooked from the beginning until the very end. This is Ms. Morgan's debut novel and I anxiously await more from her!

I picked up a copy of Tainted from London before it came out in the U.S. There was a buzz there about how good the book was. Brooke Morgan writes beautifully. Her characters develop slowly and carefully. After you are drawn in and think you know what is going to happen, Tainted turns in to a compelling, page-turing thriller. Literally, was late to a meeting because I could not put it down.