Picture Perfect Read online

  PRAISE FOR JODI PICOULT:

  "Beginning with her first book...Picoult has refused to sweat the small stuff. She's concerned with love and truth, the blurry boundary lines implied by both. She forces the reader to look, however uncomfortable the experience might be, at complacent people who discover, much too late, the sad disparity between what they thought they knew and what they know now."

  --Orlando Sentinel Tribune

  "Picoult makes her characters real as reality."

  --Concord Monitor

  "Picoult's novels never disappoint the reader."

  --Ann Hood,The Sunday Journal (Providence, RI) Songs of the Humpback Whale

  "A memorable and entertaining ride, [rendered] with great skill and rich detail."

  --San Francisco Chronicle

  "This powerful and affecting novel demonstrates that there are as many truths to a story as there are people to tell it."

  --Publishers Weekly

  "A structural tour-de-force...Picoult has the true storyteller's ability to evoke a world on the page and pull the reader into it."

  --The Women's Review of Books

  "Jodi Picoult is a more convincing argument for reincarnation than anything Shirley MacLaine has ever written: How could a 26-year-old first novelist have so much knowledge of marriage, of mothering a teenager, of separation and reconciliation, unless she's been down this road before in another guise? Picoult's imagination is formidable."

  --Los Angeles Times Book Review

  "In the surrealistically twinkling hegira sections of this story...Jodi Picoult spreads her wings and catches an updraft."

  --The New York Times Book Review

  Harvesting the Heart

  "Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in her lush second novel. This story belongs to...the lucky reader."

  --The New York Times Book Review

  "Reminiscent of Sue Miller'sThe Good Mother , with a voice all its own."

  --Chicago Tribune

  "Picoult weaves a beautiful tale from threads of sympathetic characters into a pattern told from two points of view, then fringes it with suspense and drama."

  --The Charlotte Observer

  "A brilliant, moving examination of motherhood, brimming with detail and emotion."

  --Richmond Times-Dispatch

  "Picoult's depiction of families and their relationships over time is rich and accurate...Harvesting the Heart[is] a moving portrayal of the difficulties of marriage and parenthood."

  --The Orlando Sentinel

  "Picoult brings her considerable talents to this contemporary story of a young woman in search of her identity...Told in flashbacks, this is a realistic story of childhood and adolescence, the demands of motherhood, the hard paths of personal growth and the generosity of spirit required by love. Picoult's imagery is startling and brilliant; her characters move credibly through this affecting drama."

  --Publishers Weekly

  Mercy

  Named one of the top seven novels of 1996 by Glamour magazine "A quietly powerful book that examines the boundaries of love and loyalty, courage and forgiveness...Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships."

  --The Boston Globe

  "I would be surprised if anyone who reads the first 20 pages ofMercy could put it aside again. This is the Real Thing, a novel about plausible people and important ideas told with riveting cinematic clarity."

  --Portland Oregonian

  "An inspired meditation on love."

  --Publishers Weekly

  "A graceful stylist, Picoult entertains her readers not only with feel-good storytelling and irresistible characters but with consideration of such serious moral dilemmas as euthanasia and forgiveness."

  --Booklist

  The Pact

  "Engrossing...The Pactis compelling reading, right up to the stunning courtroom conclusion. Bottom line: Picoult's deft touch makes this her breakout novel."

  --People

  "Picoult is a writer of high energy and conviction who has, in her fifth novel, brought to life a cast of subtly drawn characters caught up in a tragedy as timeless and resonant as those of the Greeks or Shakespeare...this psychologically shrewd tale is as suspenseful as any best-selling legal thriller...she forges a finely honed, commanding, and cathartic drama."

  --Booklist

  "The novelist displays an almost uncanny ability to enter the skins of her troubled young protagonists."

  --The New York Times

  "Jodi Picoult's fifth novel,The Pact , is so good that we can't put it down...It is suspenseful, intelligently written, topical."

  --Detroit Free Press

  Keeping Faith

  "Fans of Picoult's fluent and absorbing storytelling will welcome her new novel, which likeHarvesting the Heart , explores family dynamics and the intricacies of motherhood, and concludes, as didThe Pact , with tense courtroom drama...These characters' many triumphant transformations are Picoult's triumphs as well."

  --Publishers Weekly

  "Picoult offers a perfectly pitched take on the great mysteries of the heart. Her best yet."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  "Addictively readable."

  --Entertainment Weekly

  "Makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction."

  --USA Today

  Plain Truth

  "A suspenseful, richly layered drama...From the very start, Picoult draws readers in...impressive...Picoult's seventh novel never loses its grip. The research is convincing, the plotting taut, the scenes wonderfully vivid...[An] absorbing, multidimensional portrait of an Amish clan...a hummer of a tale."

  --People

  "AWitness -meets-Agnes of Godcourtroom thriller...both absorbing and affecting."

  --Entertainment Weekly

  "Appealing, suspenseful...Reads like a cross between the Harrison Ford movieWitness and Scott Turow's novelPresumed Innocent , with a dose of television'sThe Practice thrown in to spice up the legal dilemmas."

  --Arizona Republic

  Salem Falls

  A Featured Selection of The Literary Guild(r) "Picoult's description of the legal process is excellent, especially her intriguing and thorough explanation of DNA evidence, and the narrative is impressively complicated, with a couple of eye-opening surprises...Colorful."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  Picture Perfect

  JODI PICOULT

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, li