MacKenzie Bezos was born in northern California and studied creative writing at Princeton University. She is the recipient of an American Book Award for her first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright. She lives in Seattle with her husband and four children.
“Taut but nuanced, a character-driven thriller that is both
suspenseful and intelligent.” —Vogue“Bezos writes spare,
present-tense prose that lends her writing an urgency as four women
slip in and out of psychic and emotional peril.” —The New York
Times Book Review“Sweet are the uses of adversity, writes
Shakespeare, and MacKenzie Bezos explores that proposition. . . .
Her characters are beautifully delineated and arrestingly
original.” —Geraldine Brooks
“Traps is a page turner. . . . A remarkable kind of alchemy. . . .
I didn't want it to end.” —Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for
Stone“Cleverly orchestrated. . . . Each woman is impressively
rendered.” —Kirkus Reviews“Bezos galvanizes the mundane with a
sense of dread, presenting four women trapped by sad circumstances
and their own fallibility. . . . Bezos creates a sad, melancholic,
nearly melodramatic world, almost too hard to stomach until we
begin to see what she sees: “Life is full of things that feel like
traps. . . . Sometimes later we see that they led us where we
needed to go.’” —Publishers Weekly
“The story of four women in distress. . . . Bezos deftly weaves
these disparate stories together and creates a moving tale of
redemption.” —Booklist
Bezos (The Testing of Luther Albright) has a knack for the slow-build. In her second novel she galvanizes the mundane with a sense of dread, presenting four women trapped by sad circumstances and their own fallibility, as they gradually make their way through four tense days during which their lives intersect. Dana, a security guard, watches over Jessica, an actress, as she goes to face her exploitative father and retrieve a dog; while Vivian, a 15-year-old mother of twins who is running from more than one abuser, answers Lynn's ad for help caring for her dogs at Three Paws Dog Rescue. All four characters have secrets-some, it turns out, involving one another. None of them are at all happy, and the author keeps the reader in suspense as to what the fifth day will bring each woman: doom or salvation? Bezos creates a sad, melancholic, nearly melodramatic world, almost too hard to stomach until we begin to see what she sees: "Life is full of things that feel like traps.... Sometimes later we see that they led us where we needed to go." Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Opening in contemporary California, Bezos's (The Testing of Luther Albright) latest follows Dana, a security specialist and celebrity bodyguard, as she cares for a boyfriend with cancer and undertakes a new assignment guarding a paparazzi-plagued actress, Jessica. Their stories soon intertwine with those of Vivian, a teenage mother on the run from her abusive pimp, and Lynn, proprietor of an animal sanctuary in rural Nevada. VERDICT Bezos skillfully interweaves the stories of these four compelling characters, all of whom are facing individual challenges and seeking escape and peace. This is a fast read, told in the present tense; the reflection comes later. Recommend to women's fiction fans seeking novels with more substance and to book clubs looking for contemporary options.-Jennifer B. Stidham, Baytown, TX (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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