True Believer [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Nicholas Sparks (Author), David Aaron Baker (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2007

As a science journalist with a regular column in "Scientific American," Jeremy Marsh specializes in debunking the supernatural--until he falls in love with the granddaughter of the town psychic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Charming, divorced Jeremy Marsh is a rising star. As a dashing, successful 37-year-old Manhattan science journalist, his skeptical scrutiny of ineffective antidepressants, cults and television clairvoyants has caught the eye of North Carolina restaurant owner Doris McClellan, who invites Jeremy to bucolic Boone Creek to scoop the story of eerie mystery lights appearing in an ancient cemetery. A diviner who can predict the sex of unborn babies, Doris suspects the lights are a ghostly curse. Her beautiful librarian granddaughter, Lexie Darnell, makes a lovely, if guarded, tour guide as Jeremy revs up his electromagnetic equipment for the ghost hunt. After witnessing the ethereal graveside lights, both grow closer, much to the chagrin of local deputy Rodney Hopper, who wants Lexie for himself. Guided by sage Doris and manipulated by meddling mayor Tom Gherkin, big-city Jeremy and smalltown Lexie find that trepidation about their differences somehow manages to bloom into love. Jeremy eventually uncovers the hidden truth behind the glowing graveyard fog and departs the lush gothic environs for New York. Can love bridge the gap? Sparks (The Wedding) delivers another shrink-wrapped, reliably uncomplicated romantic confection that's light as air, smooth as silk and gloriously sweet. Agent, Theresa Park. (One-day laydown Apr. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

New York skeptic Jeremy Marsh makes his living exposing frauds in the articles he writes for Scientific American. His latest target is a famous psychic who claims to speak to the dead. The acclaim he receives for his expose places Jeremy in the public eye with an appearance on national television. Jeremy then travels to Boone Creek, North Carolina, to search for the truth behind the mysterious lights that appear in the local cemetery. The legend is that an old curse causes the spirits to wander, and now the town wants to capitalize on the phenomena to bring in badly needed tourist dollars. But Doris McClellan, the local psychic, wants the lights debunked, and asks Jeremy to investigate. What Jeremy doesn't count on is falling for Doris' granddaughter, Lexie, the town librarian. Lexie has had enough of smooth-talking city men, and shields her heart, but Jeremy keeps trying to penetrate her tough shell. Lexie never wants to leave Boone Creek, and she believes that Jeremy will never want to stay. Although Sparks' latest starts with great potential, the main characters feel cool and distant; it is the secondary characters who embody the warmth and verve that usually mark Sparks' best-sellers. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Hachette Audio; Unabridged edition (November 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600242553
• ISBN-13: 978-1600242557
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 5.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (244 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #701,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nicholas Charles Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska on December 31, 1965, the second son of Patrick Michael (1942-1996) and Jill Emma Marie (Thoene) Sparks (1942-1989). His siblings are Michael Earl Sparks (b. Dec. 1964), and Danielle Sparks (b. Dec. 1966, d. June, 2000). As a child, he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, finally settling in Fair Oaks, California at the age of eight. His father was a professor, his mother a homemaker, then optometrist's assistant. He lived in Fair Oaks through high school, graduated valedictorian in 1984, and received a full track scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.
After breaking the Notre Dame school record as part of a relay team in 1985 as a freshman (a record which still stands), he was injured and spent the summer recovering. During that summer, he wrote his first novel, though it was never published. He majored in Business Finance and graduated with high honors in 1988.
He and his wife Catherine, who met on spring break in 1988, were married in July, 1989. While living in Sacramento, he wrote his second novel that same year, though again, it wasn't published. He worked a variety of jobs over the next three years, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and started his own small manufacturing business which struggled from the beginning. In 1990, he collaborated on a book with Billy Mills, the Olympic Gold Medalist and it was published by Feather Publishing before later being picked up by Random House. (It was recently re-issued by Hay House Books.) Though it received scant publicity, sales topped 50,000 copies in the first year of release.
He began selling pharmaceuticals and moved from Sacramento, California to North Carolina in 1992. In 1994, at the age of 28, he wrote The Notebook over a period of six months. In October, 1995, rights to The Notebook were sold to Warner Books. It was published in October, 1996, and he followed that with Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), and Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), Three Weeks with my Brother (2004), True Believer (2005) and At First Sight (2005) all with Warner Books. All were domestic and international best sellers and were translated into more than 35 languages. The movie version of Message in a Bottle was released in 1999, A Walk to Remember was released in 2002, and The Notebook was released in 2004. The average domestic box office gross per film was $56 million -- with another $100 million in DVD sales -- making the novels by Nicholas Sparks one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood.
The film rights to Nights in Rodanthe, True Believer and At First Sight have been sold, and Nicholas Sparks has written the screenplay for The Guardian, though he has not offered it for sale at this point.
He now has five children: Miles, Ryan, Landon, Lexie, and Savannah. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and children.
His ancestry is German, Czech, English, and Irish, he's 5'10" and weighs 180 lbs. He is an avid athlete who runs daily, lifts weights regularly, and competes in Tae Kwon Do. He attends church regularly and reads approximately 125 books a year. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite Sparks books but worth reading for fans, April 20, 2005

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: True Believer (Hardcover)

TRUE BELIEVER by Nicholas Sparks

March 25, 2005

In Nicholas Sparks' latest novel, TRUE BELIEVER, Jeremy Marsh is a science journalist whose forte is debunking supernatural phenomenon using science and technology. His latest challenge is to solve the mystery behind the rumors of ghosts living in a cemetery in the small town of Boone Creek, North Carolina. When he starts to fall in love with the local psychic's granddaughter, she does her best to dissuade him, knowing they come from different worlds and that nothing would come of this romance.

TRUE BELIEVER is a departure for Sparks, in that this is not a tragedy. It is a straightforward story of a man who is trying to solve the mystery of the ghosts in Cedar Creek Cemetery, and in the midst of working, he meets Lexie Darnell, a woman who has been hurt in the past and is afraid to love again. The two are worlds apart in terms of background, but he feels that they have a chance to make a go at it.

Lexie believes in the ghosts, as do many of the town's people. If Jeremy finds the solution to this puzzle, it would change life in Boone Creek and possibly ruin any chances Jeremy has with Lexie. But he continues on, wanting to prove that yet again he can solve any mystery that involves the supernatural.

I enjoyed this book, but it's not going to be a favorite. I have always enjoyed Sparks' tragedies (in particular MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE). TRUE BELIEVER was a well-written novel, but it lacks the "oomph" that is characteristic of his stories. The most enjoyable part of this story was the mystery behind the ghosts, but I in particular enjoyed the characters that filled the pages. Sparks always does a good job with the characters that grace the pages of his novels, and while the plot itself may lack something, TRUE BELIEVER is worth the read for any Sparks fan.

68 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not for me, May 12, 2005

By 

M. S. Butch (Katonah, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: True Believer (Hardcover)

If you are a Sparks fan, you were probably prepared for this. I was not. The PW description seduced me into thinking it was a story about journalist investigating mysterious lights. It isn't. The lights serve only to get Our Hero to the place where he meets cliched smart beautiful librarian, so that he can ultimately embrace the charms of rural life.

Now, just about every romance formula is done over and over, and if it is done well, I enjoy it over and over. I did not think this was done well. The characters were all surface; there was no apparent reason for Hero to fall for this particular woman or she for him (except that pickings are slim in a very small town). And it struck me as being purely anti-moderniist/technological -- a tiny backwater town equated with all that is good. (the concomitant bad thinks about the small town did not figure in). On the whole, I would rate this similarly to a Danielle Steele, which is negative to me but of course, in the eyes of many, a high compliment.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A departure from Sparks's previous works, April 16, 2005

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: True Believer (Hardcover)

In TRUE BELIEVER, journalist Jeremy Marsh spends his time debunking the supernatural. He has just finished exposing a fake television psychic, proving that the man was not able to read people's minds or see into their pasts. When he hears about a phenomenon happening in the small town of Boone Creek in North Carolina, where ghosts are seen inhabiting a local cemetery, Jeremy knows he will be able to find the truth behind the lights that are seen glimmering on certain nights above the cemetery grounds. He knows that ghosts do not truly exist.

When Jeremy arrives in Boone Creek, he experiences what small town life is all about. He's from the big city and feels like he's walked into a time warp. Everyone knows everyone, and gossip spreads like wildfire. His "hotel" is a hole-in-the-wall motel, filled with dead animals ranging from a bear to snakes and all sorts of wonderful critters that can be found in the wild. He's as far from New York as he can get, and he's not sure he likes it.

The very day he arrives in town, Jeremy makes a quick visit to Cedar Creek Cemetery, where the ghosts are reported to have been seen, when he notices a young woman there who catches his eye. He later finds out that her name is Lexie Darnell. Neither of them knows it but soon their lives will be changed forever. Lexie is the granddaughter of the woman who had invited him to visit the town. Doris Marsh is the town psychic.

As Jeremy slowly does his research in the library where Lexie happens to work, he gets to know her. Despite what he feels about the town, he finds himself interested in this woman who doesn't seem to want anything to do with him.

Having read nearly every Nicholas Sparks book that has been written, it is safe to say that TRUE BELIEVER is quite the departure from his previous works. While Sparks tends to write tragedies as opposed to true romances, this novel is far from the tragedy that some of his other fiction books have been.

This is not to say that TRUE BELIEVER wasn't enjoyable. But fans who are looking for the typical Nicholas Sparks book will not find it here. Instead of concentrating on the romance, this reviewer found the focus of the novel to be on the mystery behind the cemetery, and the high point of the plot was Jeremy's answer to the story behind the ghosts. The fact that Jeremy is dating a woman who believes her parents' ghosts have come to her in the cemetery makes the reader anxious to know what he finds, realizing that the answer will greatly impact the relationship that is central to the love story.

One aspect of storytelling in which Sparks excels is his ability to create the characters who populate his books. His capacity to bring into being likeable, everyday people helps make this novel readable. The strength of the story isn't necessarily the plot, and the romance that is found here is not one that a typical romance reader might expect. For this reader, the characters were the highlight of the novel, and the process of getting to know some of the more prominent ones was a delight. One will find oneself chuckling over some of the antics of the townspeople. The brouhaha that the people make over Jeremy's celebrity is very cute, if not humorous.

Overall, the plotlines are balanced between the mystery of the cemetery, Jeremy and Lexie's relationship, the aspect of small-town living, and the individual life stories of the two protagonists. Focusing on the individual characters is just one way of truly enjoying this book. It's a soothing type of read, and readers will feel comfortable with these characters.

On that note, TRUE BELIEVER comes recommended. However, newcomers to Sparks should not think that this novel is characteristic of the type of writing that has popularized him over the years. His forte lies in the tragedy, and to read THE NOTEBOOK or MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE --- two of this reader's favorites --- is a must.

--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton