Product Description

June's first husband was killed in a car crash. Against all the odds, her daughter was uninjured and, in another miracle, June found love again with the policeman who rescued them. Six years on they are a happy family, June pregnant with their own child.

But now June's second daughter is dying without the new heart she so urgently needs. And her first daughter, along with her husband, is dead, killed by Shay Bourne, an itinerant workman they welcomed into their home. The crime was so heinous that Shay has been given the death penalty for the first time in 69 years in New Hampshire. Shay is going to die, and he is looking for redemption. He wants to give June's daughter his heart . . . (20080401)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7925 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-17
• Released on: 2008-04-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Review
Praise for Jodi Picoult -- : 'Jodi Picoult is not one to shy away from fictional controversy; in fact, the more tangled and messy a moral dilemma appears, the better she likes it. -- Daily Mail 'Impossible to put down and stayed in my mind long after I had finished' -- Observer 'Superb, many-stranded, and grimly topical' -- The Times 'Switch off your phone before you settle down with this page-turner. ! It's utterly gripping.' -- Eve on CHANGE OF HEART 20080401 '! it's an involving, page-turning mixture of emotional upheaval and reasoned argument !' -- Daily Mail 20080411 'A carefully-plotted narrative and perfect pacing lend Picoult's latest work of fiction credibility.' -- Image 20080401 'If you want to fuel a discussion, look no further than Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart. Picoult sustains all this with the supreme confidence of a bestselling writer who knows she is going to be widely read, and discussed. You couldn't want for more for your reading group to sink its collective gnashers into.' -- MsLexia 20080401 'Picoult has an uncanny knack of dreaming up moral dilemmas that you cannot ignore: you must know the resolution... True to form, Picoult keeps you guessing to the end in this morality tale... This is a challenging and clever read... it turns into an edge-of-your-seat thriller, with some thought-provoking wrangling over religious belief and the perils of self-righteousness along the way.' -- Sunday Express 20080413 'if you're a fan of dark, serious books that explore family relationships and scary moral dilemmas involving religion, crime and politics, then you're probably a massive Jodi Picoult fan already, and CHANGE OF HEART won't disappoint.' -- Heat 20080419

A convicted murderer who may be a latter-day Messiah wants to donate his heart to the sister of one of his victims, in Picoult's frantic 15th (Nineteen Minutes, 2007, etc.).Picoult specializes in hot-button issues. This latest blockbuster-to-be stars New Hampshire's first death-row inmate in decades, Shay Bourne, a 33-year-old carpenter and drifter convicted of murdering the police officer husband of his employer, June, and her seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. Eleven years later Shay is still awaiting execution by lethal injection. Suddenly, miracles start to happen around Shay - cell-block tap water turns to wine, an AIDS-stricken fellow inmate is cured, a pet bird and then a guard are resurrected from the dead. Shay's spiritual adviser, Father Michael, is beginning to believe that Shay is a reincarnation of Christ, particularly when the uneducated man starts quoting key phrases from the Gnostic gospels. Michael hasn't told Shay that he served on the jury that condemned him to death. June's daughter Claire, in dire need of a heart transplant, is slowly dying. When Shay, obeying the Gnostic prescription to "bring forth what is within you," offers, through his attorney, ACLU activist Maggie, to donate his heart, June is at first repelled. Practical obstacles also arise: A viable heart cannot be harvested from a lethally injected donor. So Maggie sues in Federal Court to require the state to hang Shay instead, on the grounds that his intended gift is integral to his religious beliefs. Shay's execution looms, and then Father Michael learns more troubling news: Shay, who, like Jesus, didn't defend himself at trial, may be innocent. Clunky prose and long-winded dissertations on comparative religion can't impede the breathless momentum of the Demon-Drop plot. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review
Praise for Jodi Picoult (: )

'Jodi Picoult is not one to shy away from fictional controversy; in fact, the more tangled and messy a moral dilemma appears, the better she likes it. (Daily Mail )

'Impossible to put down and stayed in my mind long after I had finished' (Observer )

'Superb, many-stranded, and grimly topical'

(The Times )

'Switch off your phone before you settle down with this page-turner. … It’s utterly gripping.’ (Eve on CHANGE OF HEART )

'… it’s an involving, page-turning mixture of emotional upheaval and reasoned argument …’ (Daily Mail )

'A carefully-plotted narrative and perfect pacing lend Picoult’s latest work of fiction credibility.’ (Image )

'If you want to fuel a discussion, look no further than Jodi Picoult’s Change of Heart. Picoult sustains all this with the supreme confidence of a bestselling writer who knows she is going to be widely read, and discussed. You couldn’t want for more for your reading group to sink its collective gnashers into.’ (MsLexia )

'Picoult has an uncanny knack of dreaming up moral dilemmas that you cannot ignore: you must know the resolution... True to form, Picoult keeps you guessing to the end in this morality tale... This is a challenging and clever read... it turns into an edge-of-your-seat thriller, with some thought-provoking wrangling over religious belief and the perils of self-righteousness along the way.' (Sunday Express )

'if you're a fan of dark, serious books that explore family relationships and scary moral dilemmas involving religion, crime and politics, then you're probably a massive Jodi Picoult fan already, and CHANGE OF HEART won't disappoint.' (Heat )

Eve
'Switch off your phone before you settle down with this page-turner . . . It's utterly gripping'