When I saw that there was a new Jodi Picoult book out, I had
to pick it up to read. Even better, it was free to download from Barnes &
Noble onto my nook. The only downside is that it was a short story meant to
introduce readers to the main character of her soon-to-be released book.
Despite this, I wanted to give Where
There’s Smoke a try.
The story starts out with a little background on the main
character, Serenity, and how she found out that she is a psychic. Flash forward
to the future, and she’s a celebrity with her own television show, on which she
does psychic readings for guests. Her guest for this show is Betsy, a recently
widowed young woman whose military husband was killed during his tour in Iraq.
While Betsy had been told that Jason, her husband, had been killed protecting
the rest of his platoon, Serenity finds out that this was not the case at all.
Jason shows her that he was killed by friendly fire that came from the captain
of his platoon. When Betsy does not believe this, Jason sets the studio lights
on fire in retaliation. That’s where the show ends, but that isn’t the end of
Jason. He keeps haunting Serenity, setting things around her on fire in his
anger.
Because of the fire in the studio, Serenity’s producer is
mad at her. They then see a politician and his wife on television talking about
how their son was kidnapped a week ago and the police have yet to find out
anything. Serenity decides that she is going to find the politician’s son, and
record the whole process live. She finds the son shut up in a locker at the
train station, and unfortunately he is dead. When she gets home, Serenity’s
house is surrounded by firefighters, who have just put out another fire caused
by Jason. The captain of the fire squad happens to have the same name as the
captain who killed Jason, and Serenity takes this as a sign that Jason might
leave her alone now. That’s where the story ends.
Where There’s Smoke tackled
a controversial topic, as per Picoult’s usual style. She touched on psychics
and child kidnapping, but the main focus (to me at least) was that Jason was
killed by friendly fire and the military covered it up to protect the honor of
the captain. Every book that Picoult has written deals with some type of
controversial topic, and this was no exception. She made you feel bad for both
Betsy and Serenity, which was a great way to introduce the main character of
her next novel. Picoult also handled and entire criminal case from start to
finish in less than 30 pages, which was a pretty amazing feat.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It made me want to read
the novel is prefaces so that I can learn more about Serenity and how she deals
with being a psychic. I would recommend Where
There’s Smoke to anyone who loves Picoult’s work, or is just looking for a
quick but excellent read.
Purchase Where There's Smoke
Find out more about Jodi Piccoult
Purchase Where There's Smoke
Find out more about Jodi Piccoult