A Spark of Light: The heart-stopping must-read from No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller!

by Jodi Picoult

Bahni Turpin (Narrator)

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'A writer the world needs to be reading right now' The Independent

'An apposite and nuanced novel... Picoult writes about an emotive, controversial issue with unflinching precision.' Red

'A very special novel about a very difficult subject.' Grazia

****

The Center for women's reproductive health offers a last chance at hope - but nobody ends up there by choice.

Its very existence is controversial, and to the demonstrators who barricade the building every day, the service it offers is no different from legalised murder.

Now life and death decisions are being made horrifyingly real: a lone protester with a gun has taken the staff, patients and visitors hostage.

Starting at the tensest moment in the negotiations for their release, A Spark of Light unravels backwards, revealing hour by urgent hour what brought each of these people - the gunman, the negotiator, the doctors, nurses and women who have come to them for treatment - to this point.

And certainties unwind as truths and secrets are peeled away, revealing the complexity of balancing the right to life with the right to choose.

(P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

• ISBN10: 1444788159
• ISBN13: 9781444788150
• Publish Date: 30 October 2018 (first published 2 October 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 13 hours and 2 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[bumblingbookworm]

This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Bookworm

Picoult has been an auto-buy author for me over the years, despite the fact that it's been almost 10 years since I last read one of her books.  I decided to pick this up as part of my project to read all the books on my physical TBR, to see if Picoult is still an author I want to read.  Unfortunately, the answer to that is no and I've given all her books to my mum because I know she'll enjoy them.  On a positive note, I felt that she dealt with the sensitive and still controversial topic of abortions quite well, and the author's note at the end of the book makes it clear that this book was very well researched, with a lot of effort put into it.

Picoult remains the master of weaving together a complex story, but unfortunately this felt too clinical for me and I don't think that a story about such an emotive subject should feel so clinical.  On top of that, I really didn't enjoy the reverse-timeline method, where the story is told from the end to the beginning - it loses all intrigue for me and doesn't make me want to pick up the book as a result.  This is the second book I've read with this format and I disliked it in both.  I also picked the 'twist' pretty much straight away, and wasn't at all impacted when it was revealed.  This book was solidly written but ultimately not for me.