Another Life

by Donna Anders

Gifted author Donna Anders is a master of psychological suspense -- Ann Rule called her last novel, The Flower Man, "as terrifying as a footstep next to your bed at midnight." Now Anders takes us air a roller-coaster ride of steadily increasing thrills, as a young wife on the run assumes another woman's identity -- and perhaps her nightmares....San Fransisco freelance artist Sharon Moore is caught in a living hell. Her abusive husband has made her a prisoner in her own home, convinced her doctor and neighbors she is having a breakdown, and is plotting her "accidental" death. Desperate, Sharon flees to Seattle with her five-year-old son, David. After assuming the identity of "Janice Young," a woman who died in a suspicious fire years before, Sharon's fresh start is shattered when she begins receiving death threats -- taunting phone calls that mock her every move. Tired of running, and with David ill, Sharon is determined to fight. But she can't be certain if her husband has caught up with her, or if someone is after Janice Young -- a murderer who, this time, will make sure Janice does not survive.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Donna Anders was in her early twenties when she made her first sale, a poem she sold to a children's magazine for $1.00. From those early years of writing juvenile poems and stories, to historical novels that balanced her life through some hard times, to suspense thrillers when she wrote about terror from her own experiences, Donna became a writer for life.

Reviews

[Damon Suede · Rating 1 out of 5]

Drivel. Make that smarmy, inane drivel.

La Anders serves up another botched mess about as suspenseful as a toothpick selection. A woman-in-jeopardy novel which left me rooting AGAINST the main character. She was so unceasingly incompetent, feeble and neurotic that I found myself praying that she'd get it in the neck. Not to mention her kooky menagerie of friends that Anders dropped in for subtle contrast to the cretinous, fascist mustache-twisting husband. The "heroine" was so moronic and reactive that I would have felt ASHAMED to sympathize. And her laundry list of problems became almost comical. She just suffered and suffered and suffered until the big, strong men stepped in and made her life happily middle-class again.

Knowing real victims who have triumphed over a wide range of misfortune, I was infuriated by her unimaginative incompetence, both Anders' and the heroine's. To write about abusive situations and trivilie them so relentlessly is shocking and harmful. The one thing I know after reading this piffle was that Donna Anders watches a LOT of television. Make that low-end television.

Please know that this review is not personal, but both of the Anders titles I've read have been atrocious. I love great gopthic fiction, and women-inperil plots. Even allowing for the inherent cliches of genre fiction, to call her characters two-dimensional seems unintentional geometric praise. I will add that Anders is the kind of author who uses contemporary slang incorrectly, constantly reminding you that she is relentlessly UN-hip. The plot progresses with dogged singlemindedness, without texture or inventiveness. The heroine will end up pretending pluckiness, but that's only a ruse to fill pages until the men show up to save the day. You'll stumble over red herrings that stink on ice and plot twists that loom 75 pages before they happen. And you'll find that the entire book reads like the BLURB on the back of a book, all cliche and hype without any actual writing.

Steer clear of this garbage. If you want a terrifying novel about treacherous marriages read Tom Savage's pulpy, but impeccable, PRECIPICE or Shreve's superb PrecipiceThe Weight of Water.

[Katherine Tschetter · Rating 2 out of 5]

☆☆☆SPOILER ALERT ☆☆☆
Where do I begin?
Sharon is badly abused by her husband Paul.
Sharon flees with their child David.
Sharon fakes the deaths of her and child.
Sharon steals identity of a deceased woman named Janice that looks just like her and works in the same field.
( Janice died in a mysterious fire.)
Sharon moves to Janice's hometown and gets a job ( with fantastic benefits ) in the same industry as Janice.
Janice's former fiance Taylor 'recognizes' Sharon as Janice and is shocked by their resemblance. They even sound the same!
Sharon meets Janice's stepbrother Adam ( her only family ) and is stunned by the resemblance. What are the odds?
Sharon settles into her new life. She keeps running into Taylor.
Taylor establishes a bond with 5 year old David. ( Who - although he is bright - has the vocabulary of a 2 1/2 year old. )
Sharon is stalked by a mysterious stranger. This stranger is convinced she is the real Janice ( who must have survived the fire unscathed 12 years previously. )
Sharon has numerous near misses.
She gets off an elevator just as the cables snap.
She almost falls off a crowded ferry in a rain storm. She thought someone pushed her, she just wasn't sure.
Her work and home are broken into. Nothing is taken, but her personal papers are in disarray.
David gets leukemia.
Sharon has to contact Paul for a possible bone marrow match. Neither parents are a match, but David does not need a donor after all.
Paul tries to take David away.
Sharon ( whose true identity had been revealed. ) gets a restraining order again Paul.
Paul tries to kill her anyway.
The mysterious stalker "saves" her by knocking Paul out with a brick.( She can't see his face, but he dresses in black like Taylor )
Now stalker sets fire to the work basement that Paul trapped her in.
Sharon escapes.
Stalker escapes.
Paul dies.
Sharon is a suspect.
Police follow Sharon home. She runs out of gas. Taylor passes by and offers her a ride. Sharon runs ( the stalker was wearing black, just like Taylor so he must be the stalker.
Sharon runs.
Adam shows up.
Adam grabs Sharon at knifepoint.
Taylor tries to talk him down.
The police show up. Sharon is saved.
Sharon inherits Paul's estate.
David gets better.
Life is good
I think the author watches too many soaps!!

[Prsnbrk04 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read. Read 1st time back in high school. Wish it was available digital. Had to buy another paperback version.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. After a few books I've recently read, those authors could take notes from this one. I've read books before on women escaping abusive husbands, doing it on their own, or using the organization that helps women leave. Either way, when the system fails these women, they need to do whatever it takes to get away. This story, a woman, Sharon, finally escapes her abusive husband, after years of his abuse and controlling her and their son. In a desperate act, she quickly packs things and takes her son and leaves. She heads up north and along the way, devises a plan that will make it look like they had an accident by letting her car go over a cliff. She and her son travel to Seattle. She searches the obits and finds one of a young woman, who eerily resembles her and similiar backgrounds, that had died in a fire many years ago. She is able to obtain the necessary info to get a birth certificate, social security card and a new license. As she and her son settle into their new lives, she obtains work, he gets settled into school, making friends. Then, things start happening, the feeling of being watched, someone lingering around her house. Her first thought is that her husband found them. Along the way, she meets two men, one who was involved with the woman's identity she took and the other was her step brother. Her son becomes sick, and in an attempt to save him, the hospital contacts her husband. He comes to Seattle, bent on taking his son back with him and tries everything to get him. She finally comes clean as to who she really is and why she had done what she done. She also had contacted her best friend and she was there to help her too. The detective from San Francisco came to Seattle after he gets a call from the husband as well as the best friend. One thing after another happens, and when she goes into the basement at work, her husband is there, where he is planning killing her. Just when she thought he would succeed, she realizes someone else is there as well and had hit her husband in the head and tried to set the place on fire to kill her. She manages to escape, she's this person in the alley and thinks it is one person. She heads for home, only to have her car run out of gas. The person she suspected that tried to kill her, shows up to help her get home. She runs from him, only to be grabbed by the one she now realizes is the one from the gallery. The step brother of the woman whose identity she took. He tries to kill her, only to be shot by the one detective. She is still having a hard time convincing everyone that she is not the woman of the identity she took and realizes she is going to have a hard time proving otherwise. In the end, she finally is able to prove who she really is, her son is starting to improve with his health and for once, she is happy. This is such a good story and I def will read more by this author. This kept you guessing right up til the end of who the person may be that was stalking her. A real page turning book.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sharon Moore is in a domestic violent relationship with her husband. His physical abuse continually escalates until she finally decides to flee with her five year old son, David. She stages her own death to trick her husband into believing she is dead. She settles in Seattle and assumes the identity of a woman, Janice Young who died in a house fire years before. But she looks eerily like the real Janice Young and soon, it appears someone is stalking her. It was a good plot and I did enjoy reading it to find out the outcome but the biggest downfall was the speech of the 5 year old. I think even a three old speaks better than the author portrayed this child. Comments like "maybe it was already broked", were constant through the book. The child is supposed to be in kindergarten! His mother NEVER corrects his speech. Most annoying! The main character continually ignores warning signs that any sane woman would not ignore!

[Caitlin Stier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Plot was decent enough but I disliked the characters and the dialogue. Especially the dialogue from the kid. Had the author ever even been around a five to six year old child? They do not speak the way her character David did. Needless to say it drove me up the wall.

Finished it to find out whodunit, but will probably sit on the shelf collecting dust for a very very long time coming.

[Chris]

I loved this book so much I passed it around!

[Jackie Simons]

Read 3/00