Afbeelding van de auteur.

Candice Fox

Auteur van Never Never

28 Werken 4,573 Leden 188 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Candice Fox was born in Sydney, Australia. She served briefly as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. She then taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Currently she works as a lecturer on writing at the University of Notre Dame. She is the toon meer author of Hades, Fall, Eden, which won the Ned Kelly 2015 award in the fiction category which is presented by the Australian Crime Writers Association (ACWA). Her other books include, Black and Blue, written with James Patterson, Crimson Lake, Redemption Point, and Gone by Midnight. (Bowker Author Biography) toon minder

Bevat de naam: Candice Fox

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Werken van Candice Fox

Never Never (2013) 784 exemplaren
Fifty Fifty (2017) 632 exemplaren
The Inn (1998) 585 exemplaren
Liar Liar (2018) 540 exemplaren
Crimson Lake (2017) 452 exemplaren
Hush (Harriet Blue, 4) (2019) 400 exemplaren
Hades (2014) 220 exemplaren
Black and Blue (1989) 213 exemplaren
Redemption Point (2018) 181 exemplaren
Gone by Midnight (2019) 149 exemplaren
Eden (2014) 102 exemplaren
Gathering Dark (2020) 102 exemplaren
The Chase (2021) 85 exemplaren
Fall (2015) 76 exemplaren
Fire with Fire (2023) 34 exemplaren

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geboortedatum
20th century
Geslacht
female
Land (voor op de kaart)
Australia
Agent
Gaby Naher

Leden

Besprekingen

 
Gemarkeerd
BooksInMirror | 11 andere besprekingen | Feb 19, 2024 |
 
Gemarkeerd
BooksInMirror | 7 andere besprekingen | Feb 19, 2024 |
I bought 'Eden' as soon as I finished 'Hades', the first book in this peculiar trilogy. It was an original and compelling read and I could see why it won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction (2014). The second book in a trilogy can often be the trickiest, the author has lost the novelty of the first book but can't give the closure of the final book but I knew that 'Eden' won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction (2015) so I plunged in. I was delighted to find that 'Eden' is a rare thing, a second book in a trilogy that is even better than the first. 

Candice Fox avoids the second book doldrums by moving most of the action to new environments with new challenges and by focusing on deepening the reader's knowledge of each of the three main characters.

'Eden' is an outstanding novel in its own right. It has the tension, foreboding, mystery and vivid violence that I expect from a solid thriller and it has three unusual, engaging-without-being-likeable main characters who become more important than the details of the plot.

When I was reading the book, I quickly became absorbed in the story, needing to turn the pages and find out what would happen as each of the three main characters becomes more and more at risk. I didn't have any attention left for anything else.

Once the book was over and I had time to think, I was struck by the skill of storytelling and the quality of the writing. The story is told on two timelines and from three points of view.

The present-day timeline carries straight on from the events of 'Hades' but with Eden and Archer almost immediately separated when Eden is sent undercover with Archer watching from a distance. We see the present-day timeline partly through a first-person account from Archer that gives the reader access to Archer's doubts about and concerns for Eden and his internal struggles as well as the details of the case he and Eden are working. Candice Fox keeps the reader out of Eden's and Hades' heads by describing their present-day actions in the third-person limited. With Hades, this still feels personal, giving me an insight into his reactions. Eden remains an enigma. The reader sees what she sees but gets only a limited indication of her reactions and judgements and is left to guess at her emotional state. This combination adds to the tension of the story and enriches the reading experience by using different paths to disclose information and develop characters.

The historical timeline, which kicks off the book and folds into the present-day timeline at key moments is told from the point of view of a boy who cannot remember his name or his past and uses a version of the third-person-omniscient that gives the story the aspect of a fable or legend without robbing it of impact. It is a tale where the violence is frequent and vivid but where emotions are locked away tightly.

I love the way Candice Fox writes. Her range is broad and her control or tone and pace is complete.

Here is the first paragraph of the novel. It's set in the historical timeline.

The night of the boy’s murder he was working, wandering along Darlinghurst Road in the crowds of workers, picking pockets, begging, doing tricks for coins. Later the boy would think of his life in the city streets as the Winter Days, because even in the summer they seemed cold and damp, the daylight short. The skin of his feet was hard and black, but the midnight hours penetrated this husky exterior, brought a chill through the asphalt into his skinny legs. The mornings rang with wet silence and the afternoons were heavy with foreboding, the promise of darkness bringing with it yelling, laughter, running footsteps, sirens.
Fox, Candice. Eden (Archer & Bennett Thriller Book 2) (p. 1). Random House. Kindle Edition.

Starting the first sentence with "The night of the boy's murder" and the second with "Later, of his life in the city streets as the Winter Days" enticed me. It promised mystery and strangeness and a tale cleverly told.

The present-day timeline starts with Hades. The tone of prose announces his character like the notes of a leitmotiv in an opera:

HADES WOKE THINKING he’d been shot. The great weight that seemed to fall and then wrap around his chest, the noise, the pain. He’d taken a bullet before and this was how it felt. But the thump on his chest was only the cat. The pain was his old man’s bones snapping into action, the noise his perimeter alarm sounding, an old fire alarm screwed to the wall above the door. Someone had entered his property. Hades groaned and rolled onto his side, flopping out of the bed like a swollen fish. The cat weaved around his stubby ankles, suddenly full of affection after the terror of the alarm. It was usually a bitch of a thing. Hades kicked it away and slipped his thongs on.
Fox, Candice. Eden (Archer & Bennett Thriller Book 2) (p. 10). Random House. Kindle Edition.

I love the way we move from feral boy to aggressive but aching old man and how the memory of having been shot turns simile into character-building history inside a paragraph

Then we move on to Archer, the one we have the most intimate view of, the one least likely to be seen as a monster and yet the one who is often the hardest to like.

THE TELEVISION WAS on, but somehow the knocking broke through the chatter of morning programs, the laughter and music and cooking tutorials, to snap me awake. The first sensation was the wetness under my face. Cold drool. Camel mouth. The place smelled damp and reeked of kitty litter. But still bearable. I could leave it a couple more days. I sat up and felt a nudge in the small of my back. I fished around and retrieved an empty Jameson bottle. The pain – dull, heavy, everywhere.
Fox, Candice. Eden (Archer & Bennett Thriller Book 2) (p. 18). Random House. Kindle Edition.

I like that both scenes start with a man being woken to pain and yet show how different the men are.

In this book, Eden is sent undercover to a remote sheep station run by a man suspected of serial rape and murder. Going undercover requires Eden to reinvent herself as Eadie. Eden is always impeccably dressed and completely in control. Eadie is a homeless young woman on the run from an abusive husband and in control of very little. The transformation is fascinating. When Eden is Eden, we get small insights into what she likes and dislikes. Once she becomes Eadie we have almost as limited a view as that of the men monitoring the feed from her concealed body cam.

The scenes on the sheep station are intense, conveying a feral lifestyle that is always on the edge of violence. The denouement was explosive, graphic and credible both in terms of the action and the impact it had both on Eden and on Archer.

Eden as Eadie surprised me. Archer's contact with Eden and Hades is challenging him to make decisions about who he is going to be. The biggest development in the book, though, was in my understanding of Hades. He really is a complicated and very dangerous man. Even so, Eden is scarier than he is.

I'll be back for the final book, 'Fall' shortly.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
MikeFinnFiction | 10 andere besprekingen | Feb 8, 2024 |
Excellent.
 
Gemarkeerd
AnneMarieMcD | 30 andere besprekingen | Jan 16, 2024 |

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Statistieken

Werken
28
Leden
4,573
Populariteit
#5,499
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
188
ISBNs
377
Talen
5

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