Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: I have just finished this novel and am stunned by it. Amanda Ward writes about the lives of these women with compassion and tremendous grace. Riveting moving, surprising--this is a novel that gets inside your mind and settles in to stay. One of the best books I have read in a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: tales of loneliness and death
Review: I loved it! This story is heartbreaking and beautiful. Ward's excellent at capturing the voices of the three distinct woman. i ate up every word.
Rating:
Summary: Three Lives Interwined Into One Moving Story
Review: I opened this book at 8:15 and, immediately caught up, finished it at 10:45, with tears in my eyes. The story of these three women, whose lives intersect during one hot summer in Texas, is gripping and heart-rending. The three pieces of the narrative, shifting from Karen to Celia to Franny, come together with an almost audible snap at the end, leaving you with a cohesive whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. I look forward to reading the second book from this author.
Rating:
Summary: I'd give ten stars if possible...
Review: I read so many books, spend a majority of my time on amazon.com or in bookstores, probably way too much time. This book completely exceeded my expections. It's so cliche to say "you can't put it down", but it's true. The characters are heart-wrenching and I was up until 3AM last night - I could not go to sleep without knowing how the book ended. Highly recommended - this is one of those books you will never forget.
Rating:
Summary: I'd give ten stars if possible...
Review: I read so many books, spend a majority of my time on amazon.com or in bookstores, probably way too much time. This book completely exceeded my expections. It's so cliche to say "you can't put it down", but it's true. The characters are heart-wrenching and I was up until 3AM last night - I could not go to sleep without knowing how the book ended. Highly recommended - this is one of those books you will never forget.
Rating:
Summary: Put everything else aside and read this book!!!!
Review: I read way too much (30+ novels so far this year) and every once in a while I'll come across something special, this year it's "Sleep Toward Heaven". This is a great book and the sort of story that I know I can recommend universally to anyone. I could summarize the story for you but it just wouldn't do it justice, just know that it has interesting and well defined characters with real voices that will resonate with you long after finishing the book.
Rating:
Summary: A Late-Night Page Turner
Review: I was forced to stay up late into the night last night to finish this novel. That is to say that I just could not tear my eyes from the page, even after I finally closed this book, I lay awake thinking about it. When a book can do that it deserves the highest rating there is to give (and from a first time novelist no less!) How do we forgive the unforgivable? That is the question that is at the crux of this well etched novel. This is a novel about women on death row, but just to say that would be selling this book incredibly too short. The story centers around three women: Celia, Franny, and Karen. Their lives become inextricably entertwined during a few short months in the hot Texas summer. All three have dealt with copious amounts of sadness throughout their lives and in the end have managed to work through it with tremendous grace. This is a compelling read, very vivid, poetic. Ms. Eyre-Ward's style and her characters are memorable, no nonsense and very very real. I look forward to more by this author!! I have read many really good books so far this year, but the hours I spent engulfed in this story and these women's lives were the most rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: Truly outstanding
Review: I've just completed the incredibly moving Sleep Toward Heaven . What a beautiful book it is. This will be on my year's best list. The author has rendered society's most loathesome people in a way that is sympathetic without sentimentality. The characters and their crimes are believable and comprehensible even as the crimes themselves are repugnant. This is a novel full of insight and compassion, wrapped in a story that is compelling and suspenseful. A great read with an important theme; Dickens would have loved this book.
Rating:
Summary: Truly outstanding
Review: I've just completed the incredibly moving Sleep Toward Heaven . What a beautiful book it is. This will be on my year's best list. The author has rendered society's most loathesome people in a way that is sympathetic without sentimentality. The characters and their crimes are believable and comprehensible even as the crimes themselves are repugnant. This is a novel full of insight and compassion, wrapped in a story that is compelling and suspenseful. A great read with an important theme; Dickens would have loved this book.
Rating:
Summary: If You Read One First Novel This Summer
Review: If you read one first novel this year, choose this one. Set aside a few hours to sit with Sleep Toward Heaven, because you won't want to put it down once you are drawn into the first page. Beautifully written, it resonates with me on several levels. I love the way the story integrates a lot of information obviously based in fact, as well as tying itself up at the end and leaving the reader utterly satisfied. You know it is meant to be. Just so.
This one is better than The Lovely Bones.
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