I was really looking forward to this story which promised to be “a real-life thriller”. It turned out to be a fairly tedious and repetitive tale of how a well off, naïve divorcee got duped by a manipulative egomaniac.
I could never really feel any sympathy towards Carolyn Woods, who despite her age and life experiences seemed to live totally in a “Mills and Boon” type world. We all like a bit of romance and hopefully most people have experienced the heady thrill of falling in love but reading this I felt quite sick at the gushiness of it all. I cannot believe that she fell for all the lies and deception.
At times it all seemed so farfetched that I struggled to believe it was a true story and that perhaps I was being a little unfair to Ms Woods and Mark Conway/Acklom really was that much of a master of deception. I suppose it could be argued that she got herself n so deep that she didn’t know how to get out, particularly on the financial front, but I really had to question her mental state. She seemed very open to flattery and very eager to grab the good life. I can only imagine that a lot of her wealth that she so readily handed over was the result of her divorce.
I am very surprised it is a best seller. It is a vaguely entertaining read if that’s your sort of thing but to me it was more of a long and painfully extended version of something you would find in a woman’s magazine.
I could never really feel any sympathy towards Carolyn Woods, who despite her age and life experiences seemed to live totally in a “Mills and Boon” type world. We all like a bit of romance and hopefully most people have experienced the heady thrill of falling in love but reading this I felt quite sick at the gushiness of it all. I cannot believe that she fell for all the lies and deception.
At times it all seemed so farfetched that I struggled to believe it was a true story and that perhaps I was being a little unfair to Ms Woods and Mark Conway/Acklom really was that much of a master of deception. I suppose it could be argued that she got herself n so deep that she didn’t know how to get out, particularly on the financial front, but I really had to question her mental state. She seemed very open to flattery and very eager to grab the good life. I can only imagine that a lot of her wealth that she so readily handed over was the result of her divorce.
I am very surprised it is a best seller. It is a vaguely entertaining read if that’s your sort of thing but to me it was more of a long and painfully extended version of something you would find in a woman’s magazine.