During the course of the novel, Christine learns what happened to her to cause her profound and total amnesia and who, finally, her friends—and true love—really are.

This book was recommended to me by a dear, fellow dog-loving friend, who has often plowed my brain in the past for "good reading" recommendations. Robbie emailed me over the Christmas Holidays to tell me about this "really thrilling read". Turn about is fair play. And so, off to the library I went in search of Watson's book. I picked it up last Friday and once I started reading it on Monday evening, could not put it down. Robbie was right. It is, indeed a thrilling read. Not only that, it is, in itself, a thriller, although not in the sense of a good "thriller" by Lisa Scottoline or Agatha Christie, or even Stephen King, but a thriller, in the psychological sense, none the less.

Watson writes in the first person, with Christine telling her story mostly through the pages of her daily journal. I was enthralled by her characterization, convinced that "S. J." has to be a woman, but was amazed to discover that this novel of intrigue and poignant observations of normal as well as abnormal life was written by a man; a man who, obviously, much to his credit, is totally in touch with his "feminine" side. The action is both contemplative and fast-paced while, at the same time, riddled with subtle clues as to whom "Ben" really is and what really happened to cause Christine's total memory loss. "Who did this to me?" is her persistent theme and she, through Watson, opens all the stops to find out.

While I did find the ending a bit too trite and bit more contrived that I expected as I raced through the 258 pages well into the late and then wee hours of Monday night and Tuesday morning, I did find this first foray into the world of novels a stunningly contrasting, compelling read that melded the genres of mystery, intrigue, romance, and psychological terror, tinged with a bit of a historical, albeit modern times, bent.  

It is, indeed, a novel whose story I will not soon forget.

This edition is replete with illustrations by Edward A. Wilson (1186-1970) and carries a publisher's preface as well as the original text of Stevenson's "How This Book Came to Be". As adventurous as the book itself is, with "authentic", often incomprehensible sea-shanty slang and lingo; powerful descriptions of ships and sailing over high seas; fierce and bloody battles; smarmy and deceitfully selfish characters, including an obsequious Long John Silver, who is the Hispaniola's  sea cook, I found Stevenson's text more interesting.

For one, I had no idea that the author of not onlyTreasure Island, but of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886), The Black Arrow: The Tale of Two Roses (1888), and The Master of Ballantrae (1889), among his other forays into literature, was ill most of his life with what was originally diagnosed as tuberculosis but is now perceived to have been a virulent form of chronic bronchitis.  He died of it at a relatively early age of forty-four. During the latter part of his life, Stevenson was married to a woman more than ten years his senior. Her son, his stepson, he writes, was the inspiration for Treasure Island, written over the course of just a few summer months, to entertain him while the family was living with Stevenson's parents. His father joined in the writing adventure, providing the list of contents of Billy Bone's sea chest and other salient details.