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Stay
by Nicola Griffith
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Vintage (2003-06-10)
ISBN: 140003230X
EAN: 9781400032303
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Paperback: 320 pages
Release Date: 2003-06-10
SKU: A-1-13
Condition: Very Good
Comments: Book shows only light wear. Pages are unmarked. Binding is tight. Spine has no creases. Expedited shipping is available.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Aud (it rhymes with "shroud" ) Torvingen is six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. She can restore a log cabin with antique tools or put a man in a coma with her bare hands. As imagined by Nicola Griffith in this ferocious masterpiece of literary noir, Aud is a hero who combines the tortured complexity with moral authority.
In the aftermath of her lover's murder, the last thing a grieving Aud wants is another case. Against her better judgment she agrees to track down an old friend's runaway fiancée--and finds herself up against both a sociopath so artful that the law can't touch him, and the terrible specters of loss and guilt. As stylish as this year's Prada and as arresting as a razor at the throat, Stay places Nicola Griffith in the first rank of new-wave crime writers.
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Amazon.com Review
Devastated by her lover's death in a slaying that was her fault, Aud Torvingen has sequestered herself in an isolated Appalachian cabin she's painstakingly rebuilding. Grief is Aud's only companion--a grief so acutely and powerfully evoked that it's almost another character in this brilliant and multifaceted novel. Reluctantly drawn back to the world by her oldest friend, whose fiancée has gone missing, Aud agrees to investigate, and quickly tracks the missing Tammy Foster to a Soho loft. She also finds Geordie Karp, the psychopath who turned Tammy into a sexual and psychological slave and has already chosen his next victim, a 12-year-old girl who's been smuggled into the country and sold to Karp. Stopping Karp, a task for which Aud is uniquely suited, tests her strength and her sanity; by transforming her grief into vengeance, she's forced to come to terms with the violence and brutality that are as central to her character as tenderness, sensuality, and vulnerability. Tautly plotted and pulsating with energy, this is a novel that won't let go, alternately searing and shocking as well as soaring with lyrical prose that's close to poetry in places. Aud, Nicola Griffith's complex protagonist who made her first appearance in The Blue Place, is never less than compelling in this stunning sequel. --Jane Adams
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Customer Reviews
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Good read but storyline a bit too pat
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-05-04
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Overall I enjoyed reading this story with its reasonable effort to teach the principle of learning and growing through life experience, but I found things falling into place a bit too easily for Aud, a complex character who is struggling to find herself through grief and guilt over the tragic death of Julia, the person who meant the most to her of anyone in her life thus far. Aud's basic human good comes through in many places, especially with Tammy and Luz, but sometimes how she scraped through some very dangerous incidents in the story really stretched this reader's imagination. Also, I was a bit disappointed in the flat ending, with a simple telling instead of showing what happened between Dornan and Tammy after all of Aud's harrowing adventures on their behalf. Otherwise, I do admire Ms. Griffith's painstaking attention to detail and thoroughness in telling the story.
I must admit that this is the first of the three books involving Aud that I have read, so for me, reading this book first was a bit like coming in in the middle of a movie. I thus really want to know in a bit more detail some of the events that led up to the current story, including how her relationship with Julia came about. I thus have started reading The Blue Place to learn a bit more about Aud's background and more about Julia.
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amazing book
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-09-09
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
One of the best books I've read in a long time. I attribute that to the vivid writing style, incredibly strong characters, and a plot that refuses to give away any secrets before it's ready. The other books in the series are just as good. Recommended.
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Sequel to The Blue Place
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-05-21
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
The lesbian main character in this novel is a unique superhero created for our time. This is one sequel that's better than the original.
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Better than its predecessor
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-04-12
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
OK, I was wrong. This is the sequel to The Blue Place, and on finishing that, I was not expecting its successor to be particular good. In fact, in my opinion anyway, it's a lot better. The stylistic excesses that characterised the previous work are here more subdued, allowing the author's skills to evince themselves much more clearly.
Among these are the abilities to produce an absolutely spine-chilling portrayal of grief; and to produce a villain who is utterly repulsive but still convincing. This last-named is a task that even as good a writer as Peter O'Donnell found -- as the Modesty Blaise books progressed -- increasingly hard, and finally impossible.
It seems I guessed wrong, too, about the author's influences (see her introduction to The Blue Place on its Amazon listing); although perhaps I may say that what led me to the Travis McGee books was someone describing them to me (I remember the event clearly) as "just as violent as Mickey Spillane, but more intelligent".
To make your protagonist a homicidal lesbian lunatic*, and further, to write the story in the first person, is something not many authors would attempt; even fewer could bring it off.
I'm now glad I read both these books. I await the next one with interest.
You definitely do need to read the first one first.
*If visual and auditory hallucinations are any indicators.
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Emotionally Gripping
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-04-11
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I believe that anyone that has read this book before can vouch that the emotions so intimately and precisely described in this book are completely opposite of the ones featured in Nicola's first "Aud" novel "The Blue Place." If you haven't read "The Blue Place" then I strongly advise reading it before you pick up this one.
In this second installment Aud is grieving. She's grieving hard, so hard that she's moved out of the heated jungle of Atlanta to the peaceful and serene North Carolina woods! However, where there is a will there is a way, and although Aud is forced back into the world she's willing to stick it out. The complex emotions, the descriptions of them, and the characters are all 3 dimensional. You won't forget them nor how you met them. Mrs. Griffith beautifully wrote this novel. It sports grace, style, attitude, and emotion. You feel as if you've been in Aud shoes, or could be. You feel for Aud and some of the other characters and you find yourself wondering if you're capable of doing the same in some of the situations that arise.
Once you finish this book, you will definitely be provoked to reanalyze yourself, your decisions and your outlook on life and people, whether they live with you or not.
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