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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Good Read Mar 19, 2009
A great way to catch the flavor of a place and time in Irag. We've all followed the war but I have not wholly imagined all the horror, cultural influences and personal motives involved. I like historical fiction for those kinds of insights and Tanya Parker Mill's story helped me feel like I was learning about a culture foreign to me. But I got hooked on the characters and the twists and revelations got more and more fun. I finished the book feeling great and thinking, "Wow, what a Good Read!"
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
A Great Drama and Love Story that just happens to take place in Iraq. Jan 18, 2009
This was a great read on multiple levels. Besides being a great drama and touching love story, it also painted a creative picture of what it might feel like to live in a totalitarian state. I loved the history of Iraq that appeared to be based on fact. How did Iraquis live before Saddam? What was it like for Americans in Iraq during Saddam's rule? How did Iraquis feel knowing that the United States was going to start bombing any day? This book gives you some insight into these questions. The love story is excellent by itself - a forbidden love, impossible circumstances, and unimagineable secrets. I enjoyed the clever way Mills introduced flashbacks into the story, and how they were revealed at just the right moment. The last several chapters were consuming, and I had to read way past my bedtime to finish. As avid a reader as you may be, you will never guess the surprise ending. I look forward to Mills next book. Her writing and stotytelling skills will lend themselves to many future works.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
"Fear rules this country." Dec 03, 2008
"The Reckoning," by Tanya Parker Mills begins in 2002, before the U. S. invasion of Iraq. The central character is a daring freelance correspondent named Theresa Fuller. Along with Peter Cranston, a Canadian cameraman, and three Kurds, Barham, Massoud, and their father, Jalal, Theresa sneaks across the border from Turkey to northern Iraq. Their destination is Bamuk, a small Kurdish village where Theresa plans to tape an interview describing the suffering of Jalal's family at the hands of the Iraqis. Unfortunately, the group is intercepted by Iraqi thugs who attack and incarcerate them.
Thus begins a horrible ordeal during which Theresa is confined in subhuman conditions and repeatedly interrogated. She fears what will happen when her captors learn that she spent five years in Iraq, where her father was a visiting professor of political science who was suspected of being an American spy. When Theresa finds herself at the mercy of a malevolent colonel named Farouk Badr who is a member of the Saddam Hussein's dreaded Security Services, she is panic-stricken. Her only chance to get out alive is to ingratiate herself with Badr's protégé, Captain Tariq al-Awali, an English-speaking Iraqi who was educated in America and appears to have a sense of compassion. During her imprisonment, Theresa, who is an epileptic, has several seizures accompanied by flashbacks from her murky past, much of which she has forgotten. When the truth about her childhood at last emerges, Theresa is in for a rude awakening.
Mills is a journalist who grew up overseas and "lived through two revolutions...involving Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party," and her familiarity with the Middle East lends verisimilitude to her story. She effectively captures Theresa's terror and helplessness as she struggles to remain alive and sane in a filthy, roach-infested cell. Theresa is an appealing heroine who goes through a crisis of faith as she tries to come to terms with her troubled past and uncertain future. "The Reckoning" is a powerful and suspenseful novel about hatred, family dysfunction, political repression, survival, and courage. It is fast-paced and engrossing and has a number of surprises that will keep the reader guessing until the end.
loved it Nov 25, 2008
I immensely enjoyed The Reckoning by Tanya Parker Mills. The characters were believable and I was immediately drawn into the story which contains historical and contemporary facts, a believable love story, and a twisting and turning plot. I was very interested in her details about different groups in Iraq and their struggles as well as the history of Saddam Hussein's rise to power. Also, she painted a very real picture of real people in Iraq...those who were responsible for horrible atrocities, but also those who were unfortunately caught in a bad place and time and the hard choices they had to make. Great read!!!
READ THIS Nov 18, 2008
It's rare to find a novel that features modern Iraq from the perspective of an American who lived there. Through the use of authentic detail, Mills takes the reader on a rare tour through this complicated country so rich in culture and yet so stained by the brutality of the Hussein regime. No holds barred, Mills explores the the darkest recesses of the human heart through torture and the largess of the human soul through forgiveness.
Mills adds an additional thrill due to the careful timing of the novel, the days leading up to the start of the war. Don't miss this opportunity to experience Iraq through the eyes of an American caught in Iraq at this pivotal point in the country's history.
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