Elisabeth Hyde

What a lovely book. I'm coming at it as someone who enjoys hiking and the outdoors but who has never been on a river trip--so I found all the details about what such a trip entails to be fascinating. I also think the set-up is pretty brilliant: take a group of strangers, distribute them among 3 rafts, and send them down the Colorado River and see what happens. There are some unexpected surprises along the way which ended up making the book a page turner for me (towards the end I had to peek show more ahead to see what would happen, which is always a good sign). I especially appreciated the nuanced relationships that circled around motherhood - the mothers befriending other mothers, a mother with their teenage daughter, a mother with her pre-teen sons, or women who are mothers interacting with their husbands. I related at times to pretty much every character on the trip. They're all treated with such curiosity and empathy. Wonderfully researched, beautifully written, this would be a really fun book to bring on vacation or read during the summer or even read during post-vacation re-entry, which is what I did. Downriver by Will Hobbs is another great Grand Canyon rafting book as well. show less

With a title like THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER, Elisabeth Hyde's latest novel is bound to touch upon the controversial. In fact, Hyde is no stranger to tackling heavy subjects. In her last book, the crossover CRAZY AS CHOCOLATE, she wrote about the suicide of a mentally ill 41-year-old mother and the damaging effect it had on her husband and young daughters. Not exactly light reading.

True-to-form and with the same audacity she exhibited in her prior work, Hyde addresses all sides of the show more abortion issue head-on while still managing to create a palpable, non-preachy book for her readers. A gripping thriller that will entice even those not particularly fond of the suspense genre, THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER delivers a rare but successful breed of multi-faceted morality and adrenalin-infused action that purely satisfies.

Dr. Diana Duprey is one tough cookie. She is the director of the Center for Reproductive Choice in a small town near Denver, Colorado, and refuses to dole out excuses to anyone about the job she does, despite the fact that she has a 19-year-old, sexually active daughter; a son (deceased) with Down syndrome; and a husband who spent the last 20 years working as a prosecuting attorney in the District Attorney's office. She plans to keep performing abortions for women in need, regardless of the incessant protests outside her clinic and the barrage of threats from members of the right-to-life activist group, the Lifeblood Coalition --- until her body is found floating in the pool outside her home, two weeks before Christmas.

Enter 26-year-old Huck and his partner, 36-year-old Ernie --- two detectives assigned to the Duprey case, and the first to show up at the scene of the crime aside from Frank, Diana's husband. Frank is apparently the last person who saw Diana alive (or so Huck and Ernie assume) and is suspiciously at the house when the cops arrive to assess the damage. Broken shards of glass are found scattered near the ficus tree, the kitchen is in disarray, and there is a horrific bruise the size of a grapefruit on Diana's neck. The prognosis doesn't look good for Frank, who was also overheard fighting with his wife earlier that evening, right around the time she was killed.

To make matters more complicated, Diana's daughter, Megan, also had a fight with her mother at lunch over a spring-break trip to Mexico, and Megan's ex-boyfriend, Bill, had become a serious threat to both her and Megan's well-being. Apparently, he just couldn't get over the break-up a year ago, and his nagging phone calls and unannounced house visits were becoming a maybe-it's-time-to-get-that-restraining-order problem. Reverend Stephen O'Connell, the founder of the Lifeblood Coalition, had more than one reason to want Dr. Duprey dead, including the fact that she refused to prevent his son's 15-year-old girlfriend, Rose, from having an abortion, on the grounds that she believed it was the girl's decision in the long run. She also wouldn't advise Rose to terminate the pregnancy as Rose's parents had hoped, because of the very same principles. This, of course, made Rose's parents extremely angry --- especially after their daughter almost killed herself while trying to scrape the fetus out with a bike pump and chopsticks. But angry enough to kill?

As December rolls into January and January into February, Huck and Ernie sift through the facts and weigh their options. Huck gets a little too close to Megan for his own good, Frank grows more and more depressed, and Bill continues to act the role of eager apprentice --- handing off clues to the detectives as if his contributions could somehow crack the case and bring Megan back to him. Three-quarters of the way through the book, the case still hasn't been solved and readers might find themselves staying up way past their bedtime in order to solve this exhilarating whodunit.

Warning: when the murderer's identity is finally revealed, some suspense/thriller buffs might feel let down by the seeming simplicity of the solution. There isn't much of a showdown, nor are you utterly shocked by the outcome. Nonetheless, the instant-replay of events that transpired during the hours immediately prior to Dr. Duprey's death is immensely satisfying and readers surely will let out a collective sigh of relief following the book's conclusion.

~Submitted by Alexis Burling~ show less

In the Heart of the Canyon is an accurate portrayal of a thirteen day river trip down the Grand Canyon; so much so that I felt I could have been there. Hyde effectively describes the guides, the tourists, the scenery, and of course, the Colorado River picture perfect. The character development of everyone involved in the trip builds just as if you were in the boats with them, getting to know them as the days and miles pass by. The weather (and how to deal with the heat) and surrounding show more nature comes alive with Hyde's words. And when it comes to rafting down the river you can tell Hyde has seen rapids and even had a "maytag" experience or two. She puts you right in the action. A story about a rafting trip down the Colorado would be enough material for a book but Hyde takes it a step further by introducing a stray dog early in the story and creating characters that are not only interesting but complex. One character in particular, seventeen year old Amy keeps a journal. Her journal gives the events described by Hyde a new perspective. She introduces a different point of view and her comments serve as a reminder that everyone has an alternate truth based on their own unique personality. It's what happens when you put twelve strangers and three guides together. show less

This was quite a book, the story of a group of people rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, a journey of twelve days that, for some, would change the course of their lives.

From the very first pages this book reached out and grabbed me and I found myself unable to put it down. When I did manage to break away, I found myself thinking about the book and wondering what was going to happen next.

From savouring the beautiful descriptions of river and canyon, to the gripping drama of show more shooting incredible rapids, the author knows what she is writing about and really gives you a sense of being there. Along with being given such a scenic ride, the character driven story has a lot to offer, these twelve tourists with three river guides are experiencing life changing twists as they embark on the ride of their lives

I enjoyed In The Heart of The Canyon and found it to be a smart and engrossing story. show less