Kitty SewellRecensioni

Nothing but unbelievable, melodramatic, mumbo jumbo.

Dr. Dafydd Woodruff, a married British surgeon, receives a letter from a young girl claiming he is her and her twin brother's father. He knows this can't be true, as he believes he never was with her mother Sheila, a nurse at the clinic he worked at in Canada 15 years ago. He was in Canada as a penance for a botched surgery he did after a drunken night.
The book is him remembering the time in Canada and the people he met and treated. It also reviews his relationships with co-workers and others. It tells of his sexual exploits and failures. It also is in present time and his failing relationship with his wife who thinks he is lying when DNA tests say he is the father.
The ending is a twist, but not enough to save the book for me.

El pequeño pueblo de Torre de Burgos recibe a peregrinos del mundo entero, que acuden atraídos por la fama de sus milagros. Allí, rodeado de oscuros secretos, vive Héctor, un joven que se hace pasar por tonto y que vende figuritas de la Virgen para ganar algún dinero... Cuando aparece Mair Watkins en un destartalado escarabajo amarillo, Héctor intuye que no se trata de una turista más. Y es que la muchacha galesa ha llegado para cumplir con la última voluntad de su padre recién fallecido: descubrir qué fue de su abuelo durante la Guerra Civil y que desapareció sin dejar rastro. Ambos emprenden las pesquisas para averiguar el pasado, a la vez que desenmascaran las verdades que se ocultan tras la fachada de un pueblo castigado por la represión y el silencio.

Dit boek stond al zo lang in mijn boekenkast, maar opeens ben ik helemaal voor het lezen van oudere boeken. Het verhaal speelt zich af in Canada en in Cardiff, Wales. Hoewel dat laatste nauwelijks van belang is. Maar Canada speelt wel een grote rol. Kou, sneeuw en ijs, afgelegen dorpen, de inheemse bevolking, tradities en een beetje geloof in bovennatuurlijke zaken.
Dafydd krijgt een brief uit Moose Creek waarin een jong meisje zegt dat hij haar vader is en ook van haar tweelingbroer. Dafydd is inderdaad op het juiste moment in Moose Creek geweest als vervangende chirurg. Maar hij en de moeder, Sheila Hailey, konden echt niet met elkaar overweg. Hij kan zich totaal niet herinneren van iets dat ook maar lijkt op een intieme relatie met Sheila. Maar de dochter, Miranda, blijft schrijven en Sheila begint te praten over alimentatie. De vrouw van Dafydd, Isabel, staat op een DNA-test en als ook die positief is en reist Dafydd af naar Moose Creek en het verleden.

A debut novel of suspense. I found it a little slow, but overall enjoyed the book. The chapters alternate between 2006 and 1992 for the first part. I thought this was interesting because you learned about the characters from different views.

Dr. Dafydd Woodriff is a successful surgeon in Cardiff and married to Isabel. They have been trying to have a baby with no success. He receives a letter from a 13 year old girl, Miranda saying that he is her father and the father of her twin brother. 14 years earlier Dafydd had been looking to get away from his life and spent 10 months in Moose Creek in Northern Canada. This is where the letter is from and the mother is the head nurse from the hospital where Dafydd had worked. Though he claims to never have been with Sheila, the DNA tests shows he is the father. This news hurts Dafydd's marriage and he eventually decides to go to Canada to sort things out.

I'm not sure why I forced myself to finish this novel. I was not enjoying it as I read it. I disliked all of the characters, including Dafydd.

Sheila was particularly despicable. No one truly seemed to care about each other. Nor did any of the characters seem to truly understand each other. I came away from this story feeling that the characters were only acting the way they did in order to develop a forced plot.

The title of the story was Ice Trap: A Novel of Psychological Suspense. I didn't find any psychological suspense.

Kirkus Reviews described this book as "laced with erotic scenes". Where? I think it must have been describing an entirely different book.

J.S. Lance called this book "chilling and compelling". The only thing chilling in this book was its icy setting, and the only thing compelling for me was to finish this book and be done with it.

Sorry. This book did not at all leave me with a favorable impression.½

Madeleine Frank, born and raised in America, is the daughter of a mentally unstable Cuban mother and her father is an internationally prominent English artist. After losing her husband Forrest in a freak accident during a hurricane, Madeleine flees her island home in Key West, Florida and follows her parents to the ancient city of Bath, England to start life anew. Training and practicing as a psychotherapist, Madeleine has finally found a measure of peace through helping others.

Though devastated by her loss, her grief covers another much deeper scar from her past. Madeleine's demons have never truly left her and may, in fact, be closer than ever - in the mad visions of her mother, formerly a priestess of Santeria, the mysterious Afro-Cuban religion. Rachel Locklear appears in Madeleine's office, seeking therapy. A hostile, deeply mistrustful, and severely damaged young woman - Rachel is willing to try anything to break away from her Ukrainian lover, who has subjected her to years of cruelty and brutality and now threatens to kidnap their son.

As Madeleine learns more about her patient's history, she becomes increasingly troubled by the eerie similarities she discovers between Rachel's childhood and her own. Reluctant to act unprofessionally and risk having Rachel walk out of her life forever, Madeleine keeps her suspicions to herself. But she is unaware of the sinister forces gathering strength in her patient's life. Desperate to keep her son safe from his father's ruthless "associates", Rachel eventually has no choice but to involve the only person she can trust in a murderous web of revenge and deception.

From the tropical lushness of Key West to the imposing Georgian streets of Bath, two women with painful pasts collide dangerously with a world of Cuban sorcery, prostitution and cold-blooded murder - culminating in a tale as terrifying as it is compelling.

I have to say that while this book certainly had an exciting plot, I found that it was just a bit too convoluted and slow for my taste. In my opinion, this book was definitely not quick reading, and I had to give it a B+! However, I'm certainly interested in reading Kitty Sewell's debut novel, Ice Trap at some point.

I wish I would have read the reviews before I read the book.½

I wasn't so gripped by this book. Everything was so obvious. Also the author was trying to set different links within the story and their characters it was always so predictable. The devilish actions some of the characters were practising were so different to each other that all in all it was more disturbing than gripping.
I wouldn't recommend this book.½

Ice Trap, Kitty Sewell. 2005. I downloaded this on my kindle to take to the beach, and it was a good book to read at the beach. Dafydd Woodruff is a successful surgeon in Cardiff, Wales. He has a wife he adores and they are trying to conceive a child. Their life is turned inside out and upside down when David receives a letter from the Northwest Territory from a girl claiming to be his daughter. He knows this is impossible especially considering that she says that her mother is a nurse David found despicable. The story is told in flashbacks from David’s first stay in Canada and the present when he returns to straighten out the mess. This is a readable suspenseful novel, but not a great one.

I really enjoyed this book while some of the other reviews were pretty hard on Kitty Sewell. I believe that the book had a very intriguing plot that was not slow at all. Pretty shocked Dafydd's wife gave up on him so quickly but I guess it worked out better for him in the end. Full of twists and turns.

Moose Creek no era para Dafydd Woodruff más que el recuerdo difuso de un poblado aislado en las gélidas tierras del norte de Canadá, donde años atrás había buscado refugio mientras intentaba huir de un grave error en su, entonces, incipiente carrera como médico. Pero aquellos días habían quedado atrás y el doctor Woodruff, casado y afincado en Inglaterra, difícilmente habría vuelto a pensar en aquel inhóspito lugar de no ser por una carta que cambiará su vida: una misiva escrita por una niña de trece años que afirma ser su hija y cuyo mayor deseo es conocerle. Una sorpresa mayúscula, máxime cuando Dafydd y su esposa llevan años intentando infructuosamente tener hijos; pero sobre todo porque la madre de su supuesta hija no es otra que Sheila Hailey, una hermosa enfermera de carácter dominante, de quien Woodruff no guardaba precisamente el mejor de los recuerdos y con quien podía jurar sobre la Biblia que jamás había tenido una aventura. Sin embargo, la duda y la persistencia de los mensajes sobre su paternidad irán minando su ánimo y, con su matrimonio a punto de irse a pique y desprestigiado en su trabajo por un accidente mientras iba bebido, a Dafydd sólo le quedará una opción: retornar al lugar donde creía haber exorcizado todos sus demonios.

Dealing with her own heartbreak, psychotherapist Madeleine Frank becomes too involved in the personal life of a young woman client who reminds her of a daughter she gave up for adoption.

Very intricately plotted and psychologically suspenseful. Recommended.

After reading Ice Trap last year, I expected this book to be non-stop suspense from page 1. It was not. The plot was easy to figure out and it progressed slowly. I was disappointed with the writing but the expectation of a shocking ending kept me reading. Perhaps my expectation for a suspense novel was not appropriate. It is a psychological mystery but I wouldn't call it a thriller, which it is advertised as being.

Madeleine Frank is a psychotherapist with a horrific past. Her Cuban mother is a practitioner of Santera, her father is an artist who ignored her for much of her life, and she lost both the only true love in her life and the child they had together 20 years earlier. When a new patient comes in for psychotherapy, Madeleine notices that the patient was born on the same day and in the same town as her own baby. She begins to fantasize that the patient, Rachel, is her daughter. Rachel is torn between getting away from an abusive man and staying with him for his sexual prowess.
Together, Madeleine and Rachel come together to deal with Rachel's problems with her boyfriend.

The author's knowledge concerning Santera practices is evident. I think that a novel dealing with this issue between Madeleine and her mother would be interesting. With all of the flaws, Bloodprint is still a good book and I recommend that you read it.

Didn't like this at all. I was just interested enough to skip to the end and find out what happened, but SO not interested enough in reading the whole thing.

Madeleine Frank moved to the town of Bath, after the death of her husband. In bath, Madeleine has a very ludicrous career as a psychiatrist. It is here; where Madeleine first meets Rachel Locklear. Rachel is in fear for her life and the life of her son, Sasha.

Anton is a powerful man. He comes from the Ukraine, where he has some very deadly connections and one of them being his brother, Uri. Rachel tells Madeline that she is finally through with Anton. At first their relationship was great but then he would beat her, used her as a hooker and all the while he would say or do something nice that would have Rachel running back to him, but not this time. Rachel has Sasha to care and watch out for now.

Madeleine wants to help Rachel but doesn’t know how; in addition to the fact that Madeleine has her hands full with her mother, who used to be an ancient high priestess that practiced the voodoo arts. Before Madeleine knows it, she gets sucked in between Rachel and Anton. Madeleine will have to watch her step as her life depends on it.

I didn’t realize how much I was going to enjoy this book till I started reading it. Bloodprint is the first book I have read by Kitty Sewell, even though I have her first novel, Ice Trap on my shelf to read. After finishing this book, I am going to jump right into reading Ice Trap. Ms. Sewell is one of the freshest new authors; I have come across in a long time. From the first moment I picked up this book and started reading it, the storyline grabbed my attention and I didn’t once wavered away till the last sentence. Bloodprint is a must read for any fan of psychological suspense thrillers.

After making a mistake in surgery on a young boy, Dr Dafydd Woodruff flees to the Northwest Territory of Canada for a year. Several years after returning home to Wales and resuming his life, Dafydd receives letter from a girl in Canada claiming to be his daughter, wreaking havoc on his marriage in the process. Having no memory of a relationship with the girl's mother, he demands and is provided with DNA evidence supporting the claim. He returns to Canada to meet the girl and her twin brother and sort out the situation. He finds himself enmeshed in the lives of his old friends and acquaintances and searching for answers when questions begin arising in his mind.

Well-written and enjoyable. Sewell keeps us guessing about each character's intentions and motivations, but despite being subtitled as a novel of suspense, there are no real surprises in the end. Still, a fine first book by a new author. I will be watching for more.

This wasn’t too bad. It had its good and bad points. I didn’t really buy that Dafydd’s marriage was ever happy, but his actions in Canada were believable. It was an interesting conspiracy that I didn’t really figure out any sooner than he did. Some weak parts, but a worthwhile read overall!½

Don't read this book! It's a waste of time. Don't ask me why I finished it - though I really just turned the pages fast after I figured out the denouement halfway through. The plot and characters, especially the main villain, are implausible; the writing pedestrian.

Kitty Sewell's debut novel is one that's stuck with me in the time since I turned the last page but it's not for all the right reasons. A middle-aged doctor receives a letter saying he's the father of twins from an alleged one-night stand 13 years before. Only problem is the doctor doesn't recall said one-nighter. After the allegations get worse and a DNA test shows him to be the father, shattering his marriage, Dayffd head to Canada to solve the mystery.Until that point, Ice Trap is a well-done, page-turning suspense thriller. But into the second half of the novel, the story loses steam and the twist will have you rolling your eyes. And it's that that has kept me pondering this book, wondering how a book that started so well could end with such a whimper.

Tepid "novel of suspense" in which Dr. Daffyd Woodruff is told by a former co-worker that he fathered her twins 14 years earlier while living in sub-arctic Canada. Sewell has difficulty getting this tale off the ground - it takes about two-thirds of the book for it to happen. In the meantime, she employs stale and lackluster devices to (I'm guessing here) prolong the suspense. At one point you read that "he wanted to ask, but he was too tired." (not a direct quote, but you get the idea). The Daffyd character is a bit of a twit, too, and I had difficulty liking him.
But, hey, the cover is nice.½

I loved this book. A Welsh Doctor is told that he is the father of teenage twins, from a liaison he had in Moose Creek, Canada, about 13 years previously. However, the main problem with this is that he has no knowledge or memory of this liaison whatsoever, and is convinced that he cannot be the father of these children. However, when a DNA test shows that he is indeed the father, he realises that the only way to solve this mystery is to head back to Moose Creek.

In addition to this, his own marriage is disintegrating, and more questions than answers appear to await him in Canada.

The descriptions of the bleak landscape in Canada are very evocative, and Kitty Sewell really seems to get inside the head of Dafydd, her main character.