Unfortunately, this book just didn't work. Plot elements strained credulity -- and, yes, I understand that the book was written for a younger audience. (Oh! And the audio was just dreadful. The main character was raised in France with a British father and a French mother, and three other main characters were German. So why did the reader (who had an American English accent) give some of the characters ( really bad) accents, but others had no accents?)

However, in his final phase, Conrad gave himself over to far more romantic tales, with characters who were far too idealised to exist in real life. While Conrad was not given to writing upbeat stories at the best of times, the later stories were almost doomed to an unhappy ending, because it was simply inconceivable that the romantic characters could do anything conceivably mundane, such as live like any normal married couple. Andy McNab has written about his experiences in the SAS in two bestselling books, Bravo Two Zero (1993) and Immediate Action (1995). Bravo Two Zero is the highest selling war book of all time and has sold over 1.7 million copies in the UK. To date it has been published in 17 countries and translated into 16 languages. The CD spoken word version of Bravo Two Zero, narrated by McNab, sold over 60,000 copies and earned a silver disc. The BBC's film of Bravo Two Zero, starring Sean Bean, was shown on primetime BBC 1 television in 1999 and released on DVD in 2000. When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks - risks no one else in the department would ever take - to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over, as soon as the relationship starts to become truly intimate. Heliena Krenn says “It was the Malay Archipelago with its truths about human life dimmed by the mists of its jungles and waterways that started Conrad on his career as a novelist”. She is arguing that without the Lingard Trilogy, Conrad's other works on colonialism and imperialism would not have been as powerful. She also argues that to completely understand other works such as Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim, readers must look closely at the Lingard Trilogy. Krenn also points out that the three books must be read as one unit, that actions portrayed in one affect the other two. [3] Looking specifically at The Rescue, Krenn points out that the novel had many omissions in its final publication. According to Krenn, those omissions show Lingard's adventure as an "intended subversion of the interests of European colonial authorities and his motivation as rooted in ambitions for power, the emphasis and attention of the narrative shift to Lingard's conflict of divided loyalties". When people start coming around with inquiries as to Felix’s past life and future availability, Bettina finds herself becoming increasingly possessive of the sweet dog, regardless of whether the requests seem legitimate or otherwise. Things only really start getting complicated, though, when she finds herself falling for one of the people claiming to be Felix’s rightful owner. Will she be able to sort out everyone’s motives, and protect herself and her beloved dog, as forces with greater firepower than she could ever dream of begin to close in on them?

The Rescue of Ravenwood – at a glance

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen, New York Times bestselling author thrilling World War II story of espionage and intrigue, as one girl races to save her father and aid the French resistance. I'm adding this title to my books I've read by this author. I like her writing style and character development and have come to expect a quality story of historical fiction especially about World War II. The events in the story take place over one week's time. A week of lurking intensity: The night effaced even words, and its mystery had captured everything and every sound—had left nothing free but the unexpected that seemed to hover about one, ready to stretch out its stealthy hand in a touch sudden, familiar, and appalling. There is a great deal of confusion on all sides; no one (not even Lingard) is quite sure what what will happen by the end of the week, and the ending surprises everyone. It took six weeks for the evaluation to take place. Six weeks of worry, six weeks of stress, six weeks of absolute fear. Getting the results added another couple of weeks, and when they were done, we sat in the office with another doctor.

As noted, I came into this one with a bit of skepticism and am leaving it pleasantly surprised. I'm always rooting for dogs, and if you are too, you might find something extra special here.The book covers multiple POVs and time periods. One of those POVs is Felix’s, the dog. I can struggle with books where dogs are anthropomorphized. And I had mixed feelings here. It worked fine when Parker limited Felix’s understanding to a few words, expressions and emotions. When he tried to veer further afield, I had problems. It sometimes got a little clunky when Parker would contain plot points in Felix/Joe’s section and then clarify that the dog didn’t understand what was happening or being said. For me--although right from the start, I doubted that the 'predicament' of the characters in the tale was quite coherent--I thoroughly enjoyed the way Conrad brought about the emotional pitch I was seeking.