I really liked the book. Well written and just a great read. I could not put it down. Just amazing how everything just really worked itself into this great story. I have not been to Texas but really felt like I had. Putting past and present together and really making it work. I would definitely definitely say READ...... ( )

Janeology was a bit closer to home for me than it would be for others. No, I'm not related to any of those too-many mothers who kill their children for whatever crazy reasons they may have. I meant the other part: I live in east Texas, where all these things seem to happen.

The setting of the book was familiar. I live in, near, and around the places mentioned in the book (well, the present-day places). I must credit Karen Harrington, the book's author, for her believable portrayal of my current home town. Way to go.

The book, set in Houston, involves a mother, Jane, who drowns her son. The courts deem her insane, and as such, cannot adequately punish her in today's "eye-for-an-eye" litigious society. So, a group of concerned citizens help redirect the blame onto the father, Tom.

The book involves Tom's attempt at defending himself from the blame, whose strongest support is the fact that he should have known that Jane would do such a thing.

At the end of his rope, trying everything he can to cling to his remaining family, the twin sister of his deceased son, all the while starting to believe he's at fault, his mother hires a lawyer to defend his case: one of those tough, Texas ball-breakers.

Tom's conviction would lead to a horrible precedent, making individuals guilty for crimes committed by others, just because they should have known better. The case, then, is to prove Tom's innocence. And the best way to do that is through pointing the finger at something else: Jane's genetics.

Having little known about Jane's family, Tom's lawyer hires a clairvoyant, who is also related to Jane, to use retrocognition in association with some family heirlooms, to show that Jane's story was just the tail-end of a big, messy family history. And all the facts check out.

While at first I was a bit befuddled at the concept of a serious lawyer using new age methods in a case, I soon just suspended my disbelief and got on with the story. I suppose it's just as believable that a clairvoyant's visions could help "disprove" a case brought solely on emotionally charged reasons.

Harrington captures the voice of several of Jane's ancestors, fitting the voice for the era, and including bits and pieces from that time to make those pieces all the more believable. While reading, I was reminded of the video game "Eternal Darkness," only without any Lovecraftian gods mucking about with the universe.

The book is compelling and well-written. It was not necessarily a book I'd pick up and read on my own, though. If you can get over that clairvoyant hump, Janeology is part family history, part courtroom drama, and entirely readable for such a grim subject as it covers. ( )

Have you ever seen on the news a story about a mother who killed her own child and wondered 'What would make her do that?' or 'How could she do that to her own child?' In JANEOLOGY, these are the very questions that Tom Nelson is asking about his wife, Jane after she drowns one of their toddler twins. Thankfully, the other survived.

It was a day like any other until a policeman showed up at Tom's classroom at the Texas college where he teaches, to tell him he needed to come home with him. That there was some trouble at his house. Not in his wildest imagination could he have perceived what he would discover there.

After Jane's trial, where she was committed to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor's office soon began to focus on Tom and he was charged with Failure To Protect. Why hadn't he seen this coming? Didn't he know his wife was unstable? Was he guilty of not protecting his children from their mother? The answers to these questions are the basis for Tom's legal defense.

With the help of his dedicated lawyer, a lot of research and a clairvoyant who has her own interest in the case, they begin a journey into Jane's family history that leads them to startling revelations that at least begin to explain why Jane did the unthinkable.

JANEOLOGY is a book that has a dark side and I found myself getting lost in Jane's past as her husband tries to make sense of it all. Karen Harrington draws on the abilities of a clairvoyant in her story to travel through time and look into past lives that have ultimately contributed to one woman committing an unforgivable crime against her own child.

The story is told in the days leading up to Tom's own trial with each chapter introducing a descendant from Jane's family tree, beginning with her mother's geneology and bringing it full circle with her father's family history. I thought the way in which the story was told was imaginative and brilliant. When telling a story with many family members, it's hard not to get lost or to lose track of who is who. This is not a problem in reading JANEOLOGY.

Once I started reading, I had difficulty putting it down. It's the kind of book I enjoy reading the most. Not a lot of fluff or descriptive reading. Just the meat of a good story. Another thing I liked most about it was the ending. I felt completely satisfied and it didn't feel like it was predictable at all. I can't say anymore about it, but I liked the way it ended. I do have one regret and that is that I waited so long to read this book. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. So often we hear or read about tragic deaths--and murders. Janeology brings to attention what we might so easily forget: behind those stories are people. People just like us.

In this book Tom has to grapple with his own changing emotions while wading through the history of his wife's ancestors. Has her terrible crime come to pass because of nature, nurture or even something else? Viewing the domino affect which has taken place brings to light the fact that while we must make our choices individually, our choices still have an affect on others. Though Tom is the key protagonist, this story is really one of many characters. Even during these glimpses into history, readers will find themselves looking to the future and wondering with Tom about the outcome of his daughter's life.

Despite the seemingly grim situation, there is a pervasive reminder of hope throughout the book, leading up to a unique ending. ( )

A mother attempts to murder her young twins and succeeds in killing one of them, as well as the family dog. A father stands trial for his wife’s crime, accused of criminal negligance. A lawyer employs a psychic to delve into the past of his client’s wife, determined to prove that she was genetically predisposed to injure her children, and her husband had no way of predicting it. Oh, and the book is described by many as a thriller. If that doesn’t sound like a great description of a book I would normally try to avoid and would probably dislike reading, I don’t know what does.

Luckily for me, I read rave reviews from other book bloggers and participated in a LibraryThing author chat with the the author before I really heard all of the description above (I promise that nothing you read above is a spoiler, by the way). I was also lucky enough to win a copy of this book direct from the author during the aforementioned author chat.

Karen tells the story of Tom (the husband on trial) and Jane (Tom’s wife) with such ease and skill that at times I nearly forgot I was reading. The story comes together so seamlessly that I really didn’t even have to stop to suspend disbelief about the workings of the psychic. It probably helped that Tom was fairly skeptical himself, particularly at the beginning of their sessions. I basically just latched on to Tom’s thoughts and emotions; I am not sure I have ever identified so strongly with a male main character, but everything he was going through seemed so real. I would have perhaps liked to see him interact more with his surviving daughter, but it seemed realistic to me that the combined continuing disbelief of what his wife did along with the stress of his ensuing trial would give him a numb, internal demeanor.

I don’t think I would really classify this as a thriller. I think it is a fantastic story of family, dysfunction, pain, and the realization of how our actions effect other people. Since I could barely put this book down and read it in less than a day, I would definitely say I recommend it.

http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2008/12/janeology-book-review/ ( )