Beth Flynn: Kilenc perc
Eredeti cím: Nine Minutes
Sorozat: Kilenc perc 1.
Műfaj: dark, romantikus,
Kiadó: Könyvmolyképző
Fordította: Sándor Alexandra Valéria
Oldalszám: 288
Fülszöveg
Az akkor tizenöt éves Ginny Lemont 1975. május 15-én elrabolják egy bolt elől Fort Lauderdale-ben. Az elkövető az egyik legbrutálisabb dél-floridai motoros banda tagja.
Ginny élete ekkor örökre megváltozik. Új nevet kap, új identitást és egy új életet az Everglades mocsár szélén – egy ijesztő, durva és erőszakos világban, ahol mindenkinek álneve van, a hűség pedig a túlélés kulcsa.
Az egésznek pedig Grizz áll a középpontjában: termetes, sötéten jóképű és ijesztő férfi, aki Ginnyvel valahogy mégis olyan gyengéd, hiszen ő élete egyetlen igaz szerelme.
Így kezdődik az érzelmi megszállottságról és a manipulációról szóló mese, amiben egy környezetéből kiszakított lány kénytelen az egyetlen emberre támaszkodni, akitől figyelmet, szeretetet és gondoskodást kaphat. A fogva tartójára. Ginny okos és intelligens, de még csak tinédzser. Nehezen alkalmazkodik az új életéhez, eleinte küzd ellene. Aztán belenyugszik a feltételekbe.
Vajon megmentik? Vagy elmenekül? Kiszabadul élve, ha egyáltalán kiszabadul valahogy?
Bár a TBR listám havi választottja volt Beth Flynn Kilenc perc című regénye, be kell vallanom, hogy napokig csak nézegettem a borítót, mire nekiálltam a könyvnek. Igazság szerint barátkoztam vele, Ugyanis azon ritka eset állt elő, hogy nem tetszett a borítója. A rajta szereplő motoros valahogy nemcsak első, hanem többedik látásra sem váltotta ki a szimpátiámat, így elég nyögve nyelősen álltam neki. És itt jön a fordulat. Amikor ugyanis végre elkezdtem, egyszerűen magával ragadott a történet. Nem voltam "belezúgva" egyetlen szereplőbe sem, nem mondhatnám, hogy szélsőséges érzelmeket váltott ki belőlem, vagy hogy bármivel is annyira tudtam volna azonosulni, mégis egyszerűen nem tudtam kilépni belőle. Elég sok elrablós történetet olvastam már (rendszeresen Stockholm-szindrómával magyarázható szerelmekről), mégsem gondoltam gy pillanatig sem, hogy klisés lenne. A regény háttere szerintem egyszerűen fantasztikus volt. Szinte láttam magam előtt a '70-es évek Amerikáját, a hippikorszak jellegzetes vonásait. A Jimi Hendrix-jelenet ezen a téren nlam mindent vitt! A karaktereket tekintve rendkívül érdekesnek tartottam, hogy mennyire másképp viselkedik Grizz a banda fejeként, és másképp magánemberként. Cicc esetében pedig úgy éreztem, hogy valahogy ilyen lehet a maffiafeleségek élete is. Ők nem folynak bele az "üzleti" dolgokba, így képesek elvonatkoztatni magukat szerettük sötét személyiségétől. Érdekes módon nem érzem úgy. hogy ettől ezek a nők rossz emberek lennének. Olvastam több értékelésben, hogy bizonyos részek eléggé brutálisra sikeredtek a Kilenc percben, ezt a véleményt viszont én nem osztom. Minden nézőpont kérdése. Néhány pszichothriller után - van néhány javaslatunk a blogon - ezek a jelenetek nem akasztják ki az ember lányát. Ami mellett viszont nem lehet szó nélkül elmenni, az a történet vége. Vége??? Dehogy! Még mindig kapkodom a levegőt. Ekkora csavart! Bízom benne, hogy mielőbb kézbe vehetjük a folytatást, mert megesz a kíváncsiság, hogy néhány szereplő erre mit fog lépni.
Addig is összegzésként:
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 történet úgy, hogy még azt sem tudom megmondani, mitől lett igazán letehetetlen.
A sorozat többi része
A sorozat 2. része legkorábban 2019, legkésőbb pedig 2020-ban várható magyarul.
Beleolvasó
Beth Flynn: Out of Time
Prologue
1950s,
Central Florida The slap was hard and almost knocked him to his knees. They wobbled for a split second, but he managed to regain his stance and glared hard at his father.
“Your mother said you missed the bus and had to hitchhike home.”
He tasted blood in his mouth where the slap had caused him to bite the inside of his cheek. He knew his next comment would bring another blow. He braced himself.
“Ida is not my mother.”
Another hard one, this time to the side of his head, which caused a ringing in his ear. This was nothing. He’d endured worse. He didn’t know why it bothered his father so much when he said this. Ida herself was the first to remind him that she wasn’t his mother.
“Don’t fuck with me, boy. Where were you?”
“It’s the last day of school. Some of us had to stay after to help the teachers clean out their classrooms.” This was a lie. He’d gotten in a fight that day. He’d snapped when a snooty rich kid made fun of him.
The kid was new and had only been enrolled for the last two weeks before school let out for the summer. He was too new to have been warned. The new kid had asked him in the boy’s room if he picked his clothes out of the garbage can that morning. He’d left the idiot dazed and bloody on the bathroom floor, then calmly washed his hands and went back to his classroom. He’d looked at the big clock over the blackboard. Less than fifteen minutes until summer started. Hopefully, his dad wouldn’t work him to death and he’d be able to keep an eye out for her. For Ruthie.
He’d been on the loaded school bus, ready to pull away, when the driver reached over and opened the door. The substitute principal stood at the front of the bus and quietly perused the group of kids. When he saw who he was looking for, he pointed and indicated with his finger. Follow.
Damn. He’d almost made it out of there.
They never discussed the alleged crime as they made their way back into the school and to the principal’s office. He simply bent over the desk and endured the paddling. It wasn’t so bad and didn’t even compare to the beatings he’d received from his father. Beatings that had left permanent scars on his back and other parts of his body. He may have been young, but he knew this fucker, a temporary replacement for the school’s regular principal who was out recovering from surgery, was enjoying this way too much. Would probably lock his office door and jerk off after sending him to find his own way home. Fucking pervert. The world was foul.
So, he’d hitchhiked and ended up walking the last seven miles to get home and now stood there, facing the wrath of his father. His stepmother stood off to the side leaning back against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed and a smug look on her face. A hot, stale breeze floated in from the window above the kitchen sink.
His stepmother. Ida. He’d hated her for as long as he could remember. He had no memory of his real mother. He was told she’d died in this house giving birth to him. It wasn’t really a house so much as a shack in the middle of nowhere. A two-bedroom hovel situated on several acres surrounded by orange groves as far as the eye could see. His father was a skilled carpenter by trade, but for reasons that made no sense to his son, he preferred this destitute existence. He could have made a decent living, could’ve lived in a home not so far from the modern world—as modern as you could get in the fifties. He chose instead to live in a dilapidated old house that had been passed down for generations. He never once used his carpentry skills to make it into a real home. He’d slap some tar on the roof if it leaked or replace a busted pipe, but other than some hodgepodge repairs, he never lifted a finger. It was crumbling around them.
Maybe it was because his father considered himself the king of his castle and he could hold reign over his unworthy subjects. Maybe the brutality he unleashed here made him feel an iota of power that he didn’t feel in the real world. Maybe knowing that he could provide a nice and safe environment, but purposely chose not to, was part of the psychotic seed that had been implanted in his personality. He wasn’t just a bad man. He was worse than that. He prided himself too much on withholding any good he could do for his family.
That made him pure evil in his son’s eyes.
Before she’d married, Ida had worked as a maid for a wealthy family in West Palm Beach. His father had met up with a couple of other laborers to make the long drive down to a mansion situated on the beach to spend a few days doing carpentry work and repairs. He returned with his three comrades and a glowing Ida, who had finally, finally snagged herself a man. She had become tired of being someone’s maid, and when a hardworking, widowed family man came along and showed a hint of interest, she jumped. Unfortunately for her, she jumped too quickly and without hesitation. She hadn’t realized then that she was jumping from the frying pan right into a fire that was even worse. Overnight, she went from being a lonely, overworked maid to a lonely, overworked, and abused housewife.
No, he had no good memories of Ida. Maybe she’d started out trying to do her best. To make their shack a home, to be a mother to her new husband’s young son. But if she had started out that way, he had no recollection of it. Maybe she wasn’t always the horrible person he knew. Maybe his father made her that way. It didn’t matter. He hated her no matter what. He hated her because he knew what she was doing to her own daughter. His half-sister, Ruthie.
Ruthie was a sweet and trusting child who’d captured his heart since the day she was born. She was a happy little girl who was always smiling in spite of the mistreatment her mother inflicted. He spent every second that he wasn’t at school or working caring for his little sister. He adored her and did everything he could to protect her from his parents, especially Ida. He made sure she ate when she was sent to bed without supper. He made sure she was bathed. He couldn’t do it every day, but he did it as often as he could manage. He erased evidence of her bathroom accidents, making sure to wash out her clothes in the creek and let them dry before returning them to her dresser. He wiped away her tears and kissed her boo-boos.
Unfortunately, there were too many even for him to kiss away.
Every night she’d say, “Brother, tell me a story. Tell me a happy story where things don’t hurt and everybody is nice.”
He would pull her close in the bed they’d shared ever since she was a baby and, ignoring the stench of their unwashed bodies, he would make up happy stories to tell her. Anything to make her forget, just for a little while. They would watch the stars from their bedroom window and sometimes he‘d even use them in his stories.
“See the brightest star, Ruthie?” he’d ask her as they gazed out their window. “That’s you. You’re the brightest, most beautiful star in the sky.”
“Where are you, Brother? Are you there, too?” she asked him once.
“I’ll always be the one that’s closest to you.”
He didn’t know if the stories he made up were happy ones. He didn’t know what happiness was himself, so how could he tell a four-year old? But he tried.
Once in a while, after he was certain his father and Ida were asleep, he’d go to the back screen door and let Razor in to sleep with them, too. Razor was a big black Rottweiler that had wandered up to their house one day and never left. His father refused to let the dog stay and insisted he didn’t need another mouth to feed, that he’d shoot the dog if it didn’t leave on its own. The dog was smart. Sensing the father’s animosity, it would come around only at night and wait for the handout left for him on the far side of the barn. His father finally relented; he decided maybe the dog wasn’t so bad after all when his barking woke them up one night to warn them that a wild animal was trying to get into the chicken coop. The hen’s squawking never reached their sleeping ears, but the stray dog’s barking and pawing at their back door did. His father let Razor stay, but he had to be kept outside.
Now, the beating done for the day, his father stared at him for a few seconds. Finally, he said, “Get your fucking chores started. Don’t come back in until they’re all finished. You don’t get done before supper and you don’t eat.”
The boy didn’t need to glance at his stepmother to know she would purposely serve a very early supper that day. He headed out the back screen door and let it slam behind him.
“C’mon, Razor,” he said as he headed for the ramshackle barn.
It was dark outside when he finally finished his chores. He found some food he’d stashed in the barn and silently ate, sharing half with his dog. After washing up in the rain barrel, he headed into the house and crawled into bed with Ruthie, pulling her close. She moaned.
“Brother is here, Ruthie. Do you want a story?” He was exhausted, but couldn’t fall asleep thinking he would let her down without a story.
“My stomach hurts,” she whispered.
“Do you need me to take you to the bathroom?” he whispered back.
“No. It’s not that kind of hurt.”
“What kind of hurt is it? Are you hungry?"
“Mommy stepped on it.”
He stiffened, then squeezed his eyes shut. He was glad she didn’t want a happy story tonight because the only one he could think of was one where he strangled Ida with his bare hands.
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