The Brave Hardcover – Big Book, October 12, 2010

The Brave by Nicholas Evans: you may recognize the author's name. He wrote The Horse Whisperer. This novel isn't about horses but rather about a cowboy loving kid.Tommy loved his sister Diane almost as much as his cowboy TV shows, his escape from his difficult life. When she showed up at his boarding school with her new boyfriend, Flint McCullough, he was amazed. That was his cowboy hero! And when they moved him to California to live with them, he was living his dream.Until he found out about the family secret.This is a complex novel with intriguing characters, interesting background and setting, and a deep theme. The viewpoint changes from Tommy as a teen, a younger child and as an adult. So the astounding ending is hinted at but not revealed until the bitter end.

After re-reading the Horse Whisperer, which I think is an excellent novel on many levels, I decided to read another of Evans' books. I was particularly impressed with how Evans peopled the Horse Whisperer with flesh-and-blood characters, many of which with fully developed character arcs of their own. It also had many subplots that nicely built the theme of the book without making it complicated or difficult to follow. While I enjoyed the Brave, it failed to engage me like the Horse Whisperer did. This is partly because of the glamorous Hollywood setting which gives it a slight tint of soap opera, but mostly because the characters come across as less developed than in the Whisperer. One reason might be Evans' creative idea of having the story evolve simultaneously in different times. Interesting as this method may be, it results in there being no clear feeling of the story going in a particular direction. I suppose you could say that we are experiencing the "before" and "after" of the story in parallel. On the one hand I think this is a good book in many ways. Others may not feel the same way about the setting as I, so I am partly reluctant to give it as little as three stars. But on the other hand I personally feel that this was a less engaging book than many that I have given four stars.

I have read all of Nicholas Evans' books and thought the cover of this book glorious but misleading.I am not sure if it is because I am new to reading a Kindle, (which I love by the way), but I had difficulty keeping on track with the story.The start of the story has Tom, aged thirteen, farewelling his mother who is about to go to the gas chamber. The story then moves backwards and forwards between Tom's childhood with his mother and the present. Tom is estranged from his ex-wife and son who is a soldier. The son is being charged with a war crime in Iraq.Nick Evans is very good at painting beautiful backgrounds with words. Set in England, Hollywood and mid west America the story unfolds in a clever way that had me not stopping until I had finished it.

I like stories of Nicholas Evans a great deal. He never disappoints, and is kind of like another Nicholas, Nicholas Sparks, that is. He{Evans} "masculizes" the plot, which I like best compared to SparksThe plot gives the sense that there are two distinct and separate stories; however, the story weaves itself between a young Tom Bedford, about fifty years ago and a present day Tom Bedford. We don't find out until the end what the exact connection is, and it is entirely pleasing, the foreshadowing leaves plenty of clues. It can a little confusing, however. The characters, other than Tom and Diane, are not especially fleshed out.Also, the love interest of Diane was of all people, a horse whisperer, come on!

Good read but the author keeps referring to Danny as a “soldier” when he is a marine. If he joined the Army then the reference is correct. But since he joined the Marines, he needs to to be referred to as a marine not a soldier. Very frustrating and confusing if you come from a military background or family.

Something about the way this author writes just sucks me into the book. I had a hard time putting it down. The story is captivating and I can see how it would really appeal to a large audience. It may seem as though the timeline of the story is all over the place, at first. But, the whole thing comes together really nice in the end. I like how the author structured the novel. It really keeps you guessing and wondering how the events will turn out.

I have read all of this author's books and found them to be wonderful, riveting, and delightful reads, as in I couldn't put them down. This book, however, didn't do it for me at all. The story seemed to go in fits and starts, and the character development was nowhere near to the depth of his other books. It took me several weeks to get through it. Reflecting back on it, the story could have been told in a much more compelling manner, as there was good subject material and potential to be a great read. As written, the flipping back and forth in time, and the rather predictable ending, left much to be desired. I also intensely disliked the part where Tom's dog killed someone's cat, as a means to introduce Tom to one of the other characters in the book. Couldn't there have been a better way?? And the way both Tom and his newfound friend dismissed the cat's death because it solved a "problem" made it tough for me to sympathize or feel any connection with Tom after that. This nugget on top of the bigger one, Tom's part in his mother's death, and then the biggest one, his son and the atrocity he committed, and got away with, really turned me off. In fact, looking back on it I wish I hadn't finished the book at all. I guess the happy ending was supposed to be that Tom and his son reconciled, but they bonded over a shared history of murder without ever having had to account for their mistakes. This just didn't work for me.

This novel is heartbreaking at times. You get to know the main character as a young boy with cold, uncaring parents. He has a deep need for love and instead he is sent away to boarding school where he is bullied. There are unexpected events that lead him into a happier life, but it doesn't last. The lies withheld in his life cause pain and damaged relationships. He's a character you'll be rooting for throughout the novel.

I had fairly high hopes for this book considering  The Loop  and  The Smoke Jumper  would both have a good chance of making my favourite books list. A few folk that I speak to in the library had told me that it was a dud and so I didn't rush into reading it when it came out last year. While it isn't Evans' best, I still enjoyed it a lot and I'm glad I finally read it.Like with his other novels, the storyline is a little far-fetched and a tad over the top, but that is something that has never bothered be before and certainly never bothered me when reading this. If I'm being honest, I actually rather like the melodrama and enjoy the fact he writes a good tale without bogging it down too much with gritty realism. That's not to say the storylines individually are unrealistic, for example his son being charged with the murder of civilians during war is certainly something that you could read in the newspaper tomorrow, it's just that all of this happening at once, to one character and ending the way it does? Possibly not. But, like I said above, I pick up a book of this type not wanting to be depressed by how realistic it all read. I pick it up to enjoy the story and for it to hopefully be tied up in a neat little bow at the end.I also enjoyed how the story was told in alternating chapters of Tom's past and present and how we start the book with Tommy visiting his sister in prison but not knowing until the very end how she got there. Keeping the reader hanging on the end of each chapter is usually hit and miss for me but here it worked for me rather than irk me. Although I did see the outcome of Tommy and Diane's story a mile away, I didn't know how the story of Dan, Tom's son, was going to end. The tales of his time in war and how the civilians came to die did make for grim reading but it had believability around it. Who hasn't read snippets of a soldier's stories from Iraq or Afghanistan?Tom was a somewhat complex character, as you would hope when an entire novel is centred almost entirely around him, but I felt some of the supporting characters were a little flat and underdeveloped which is what makes it a bit inferior when you compare it to Evans' other novels.Despite a few minor problems, The Brave is a novel I enjoyed from an author I always look forward to reading. The LoopThe Smoke Jumper

I have been hooked by Nicholas Evans from the start, with The Horse Whisperer, and have read all his bookes, of which there are not enough, unfortunately. I always wonder how an Englishman can write with such passion about the American West. However, this book is not really a patch on Evens' past work, dealing with actors and actresses and starting out in England. The only connection the The West is that one of the main characters in an aging actor in TV westerns who happens to live on a ranch. Tom, the story-teller, mixes problems with his own son in adult life with those of himself as a child. I'm sure there was supposed to be some correlation in the lives of Tom and his son but I failed to see it. I did enjoy the book, although not with as much fervour as previously. No author can get it 100% right to every reader every time so, for me at least, I can only hope that Evans will return to more genuine American people to fill his future works. I am looking forward to them anyway.

I don't think I've ever been so disappointed by a book by one of my favourite authors. Nicholas Evans has written some brilliant books in the past but this one just feels as if he's had a few good story ideas in his head and has tried unsuccesfully to make them into one story. There's a glamorous movie star, a bullied school boy and a war crimes trial all linked but it doesn't quite work. Just to keep his loyal fans happy there's a few cowboys and horses thrown in for good measure. Not his best by far.

What a fantastic story it has all the boxes ticked. There needs to be a follow-up. Nicholas Evans superb writer

I love Evans' books - maybe its the Montana backdrop. Although I enjoyed this, I did'nt feel it was as good as the Divide, nor the Loop, nor Horse Whisperer. Probably on a par with Smokejumpers. If you like his work, you will probably enjoy it, but maybe feel a little disappointed. That is probably a great compliment to the Author as I eagerly anticipate each new book.