True Believer (Jeremy Marsh & Lexie Darnell Book 1)

I have read numerous books by Nicholas Sparks and have enjoyed most of them. However, I could not get into this one. For 3 nights I tried reading the first 30 pages and just couldn’t get interested. It is wordy and boring as all heck.

Always a pleasure to read Nicholas Sparks. But this one varies quite a bit from his usual poignant dramas. Jeremy Marsh is an investigative reporter (although he prefers to be recognized as a scientific journalist), known for debunking 'unusual happenings' and exposing frauds. He ends up in Boone Creek, SC to investigate 'mysterious lights in the town cemetery. There he meets the love of his life and faces the problem of she lives there, he lives in New York City.Not the usual tear-jerker we get from Sparks, but interesting and unusual ending.

I bought this book because it was written by Nicholas Sparks. I actually haven't read his books in many years. I don't know if I was different then, or this book is unlike the others, but it was a little slow reading. Not sure what it was about it, but I just didn't wake up in the morning wondering what would happen next. That's not to say I won't go ahead and read the next one- just to see. Maybe it's just all in my mind. The story was good, the characters interesting, but not deep enough. I want to feel as if I know the people I'm reading about

With all of today’s woes, this is just the right medicine to escape from the realities and drift into a nicer better place. I loved ALL the characters and, of course, the story line.Like most of this authors books, he did not disappoint.

As us usual this novel was excellent reading right from the very beginning. I have now read so many of Nicholas Sparks stories, and I find that it's amazing that this author's ability to grab my interest and continue to hold it right to the last word is what keeps me coming back for more and more of his writings.

Very disappointing. The story line never goes anywhere. I kept reading, waiting for a good ending, the completion of the plot, or even a surprise ending. But, there was no real Plot. There was no meaningful story line. There was no point to the book.Don't waist your time. This is Sparks worst book! Save your money.

Reading this book leisurely, at home in my easy chair ...(I received my copy of the hardback 12/27/05 in my rural mail box from Amazon's entertainingly addictive "click-n-shop" free-ship carnival of convenience.)... gave me a different impression than reading it in spits and spurts, loitering against bookshelves at City-Market and Wal Mart during a series of grocery shopping sprees.What stood out in the leisurely read at home was the vivid reality in the settings, the sports bar TV scene in NYC, Lexi's library made out of a two-story old house, the local café, homes of characters, and small town base, including, of course, the old, seedy cemetery. In the stand up read I was focused on the plot rhythm, which seemed much faster than in the lamplit-living-room, luxury read.Either way, TRUE BELIEVER feels even more special than my early intimations of it led me to believe.Okay. So, what's so special about this novel?It breathes.Strutting in spontaneous steps over a paper page stage, it lives.As the last page lifted from fingertips, the settings in the novel did not begin fading into the archives of memory. Somehow they remained lit, like the glow of morning twilight as the sun edges slowly above the Eastern land-line, or like a never-ending sunset spreading golden mists over the edges of scenes, like a dollhouse or a small town diorama highlighted for future use.Does TRUE BELIEVER descend the reader to the absolute bottom of an emotional well, and keep him there, deep enough and long enough that a catharsis blossoms peacefully from an artistically sensual depression? It doesn't wander through exactly that type of soulful solitude of deep dark spaces of the healing heart that A BEND IN THE ROAD does. But TRUE BELIEVER has its own special magic. I believe it.It appears, based on reading many and varied reviews of TRUE BELIEVER (before and after reading the book), and after reading A BEND IN THE ROAD (see my review), that Nicholas Sparks's novels (other than TB) give an amazingly effective type of emotional therapy which descends deeper and cleaner than most types of psychological analysis can hope to accomplish. I see why a reader could come to compulsively anticipate that catharsis, and be disgruntled when it has been replaced by another type of reading pleasure, which, to me, is equal. But, of course, if accounts are to be measured, I'm 58 hellacious-years-old, so maybe that explains it.What is that equal pleasure?It's hard to describe, even for a girl with be-ribbon-ed pigtails hiding inside the broken down body of a wise old crone wearing a black-cone-hat, bent at the tip. But, it seems as if Lexi and Jeremy are older souls than Sarah and Miles. It seems that the relationships in TB have, almost imperceptibly, matured and mellowed compared to earlier Sparks novels. The character connections in earlier novels seem younger and fresher, more emotionally volatile (to me that's not "for better or for worse"; it's just different).I believe that if a reader isn't craving something he has been led to believe (and hope) a book will give him, maybe he won't be disappointed to receive a different, equally satisfying gift. Gifts are difficult, though. Even if a person's expecting a certain thing, and is given something he didn't expect, even if it's better or as good, it might take a while to see that the change is what he had come to need and didn't know it yet.(See my reviews of a few culinary cozy series where I sheepishly admit to only gradually becoming able to enjoy mysteries in which characters not only do not "sink teeth into the warm, steamy sponge of a freshly-baked slice-of-bread" they don't EVEN mention "taking a bite of bread" while discussing clues. Or, see my Miss Marple reviews on AT BERTRAM'S HOTEL and MURDER AT THE VICARAGE in which I begin growing into an awareness of the subtly sensual appeals of Agatha's mysteries, even withOUT my mouth being surged into watering or my stomach being triggered into a series of growls.)As one of his fan bases, Sparks seems to have established an appeal to sensitive yet feisty young women (probably mature ones, too, along with various types of testosterone bodies-of-water) who crave and seek what Miles Ryan describes as "sad and romantic."Having recently finished reading (and reviewing) Sidney Sheldon's memoirs, I see an uncanny contrast between the appealingly youthful Nicholas Sparks's books, and Sheldon's intensely mature novels, written later in his life. I wonder what type of stories Sparks's would have offered had he been forced to wait until he was in his 50's to begin writing and publishing them. I wondered what type of novels Sheldon would have come out with if he had been allowed to write and publish his first novel shortly after his Hamlet choice against suicide at 17 years old.Soul paths are indeed fascinating, as Spock would say. Look at the convoluted road he traveled to get to a bare light bulb highlighting a Holy Book's invisible paragraph saying that the emotional richness in the intimacy of mature friendship is the brass ring which enhances rather than desecrates the power and clarity of Logic."Live Long & Prosper,"Linda G. ShelnuttCRASHHHHH!!! Oh man. I KNEW a person who can't chew gum and walk at the same time shouldn't try that Vulcan hand-sign thingy. Sigh. I gotta quit being a HAM. But... whenever I try to slough off that pigskin cloak, I become a TURKEY. Where's the BEEF!! Is that it, stampeding across the prairie on steroid-strengthened limbs?McD's here I come. Need a Quarter Pounder hit. Then I'll do Burger King, Wendy's, Arvey's, Carl Jr's, etc.

I usually love his books. This one was pretty boring until the last part of the book

Generally, I like Nicolas Spark's novels but this one didn't reveal what Jeremy was a true believer of. However, it was a light read and still, I would recommend it.

I enjoyed the read but not as good as some of the Nicholas Sparkes books I have read. I would still recommend and the sequel is better in my opinion

I am a huge fan of Nicholas Sparks and have loved every book of his I've read... until this one. I was so disappointed. I thought it was going to be exciting and full of mystery, but it was about nothing. Nothing happened. The characters were wishy washy and irritating with no real strong traits. Give me See Me over this any day.

Never ceases to amaze me how Mr Sparks conjures up such spell binding stories. Once again gripped from start to finish. Always a little sad when they're over. Believe it or not I am a true believer in the star that is Nicholas Sparks who brings a little glow of contented happiness with everyone of his stories I read. Hope you enjoy them as much as I.

Ok book