Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In the chilling world of Give Me Your Heart, the need for love is obsessive, self-destructive and unpredictable. It takes us to forbidden places, confronts us with gruesome truths, and leads us beyond our control. In the unsettling 'Strip Poker', a reckless teenage girl must turn the tables on a group of threatening young men. Can she outplay them In the award-winning 'Smother!' a daughter's nightmarish childhood memory brings trouble to the door of her bourgeois mother. Which of them will win In 'The First Husband,' a jealous man discovers his wife lied about her first marriage, and plans a cruel revenge. Will he go through with it In these and other powerful tales, children move beyond their parents' reach, wives and husbands wake up as strangers, haunted pasts intrude upon uncertain futures, and lives hang in the balance.

Reviews

Oates can tell a story in one liquid throw, like a cowgirl uncoiling a rope... A born writer, silky fluent and intimate * Sunday Times *
Suspense fiction is like a powerful drug: one page, one taste, can induce such a tingly, speedy feeling that it takes an almost superhuman effort not to finish everything off in just one sitting. At least that is how it is with Joyce Carol Oates... you cannot put [her] book down. * New York Times Book Review *
Joyce Carol Oates is a genius * Guardian *
Violence forever simmers beneath the surface of [Oates's] fiction... few American writers can match her for unsettling intensity and insight. * Sunday Times *
As ever, Oates shows a perfect ear for everyday speech and the longings of people who might never have a chance.' * Scotsman *
Her prose is peerless.. few writers move so effortlessly from the Gothic tale to the psychological thriller to the epic family saga to the lyrical novella. Even fewer authors can so compellingly and entertainingly tell a story * Scotland on Sunday *
This latest collection of stories leads us deeper into the chambers of Oates's sinister mind... Give Me Your Heart is electrifying in its range and its sizzling nastiness. * Scottish Sunday Herald *
Unsettling Yes. Brilliant Undeniably. * DIVA *
Powerful narratives... further evidence, as if it were needed, of the tremendous versatility of this author. * Daily Mail *
For a writer as formidably prolific as she is, it is remarkable that the stories here have a freshness and versatility that leave the reader wanting more. * Times Literary Supplement *
Joyce Carol Oates at 72 remains one of America's most prolific writers, churning out fluent prose and poetry with enviable regularity. There's a lot of it in print and a little goes a long way. * Evening Standard *
A writer at the height of her powers, Joyce Carol Oates takes a shiver of an incident by the scruff of its neck, and dazzles. -- Deborah Lawrenson

Author Bio

An American literary giant, Joyce Carol Oates is the author of over 70 works and the winner of a host of prizes including the National Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature, and the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement. She also has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. She lives in New Jersey.