Synopses & Reviews
Winnie Parker, mother to an angst-ridden teenage daughter and ex-wife to a successful game show host who left her for a twenty-something contestant, begins a normal day in her hum-drum existence by dropping her car off at the repair shop. After accepting what she believes is a ride to pick up her rental car, Winnie realizes too late that she's been kidnapped.
What follows is a riveting psychological game of cat and mouse set in the kidnapper's tropically heated house—kept that way for Cookie, a menacing seven-foot long Iguana headquartered in the kitchen. While desperately seeking to escape—which leads to several violent clashes with her increasingly unstable kidnapper—Winnie also tries to understand why she was taken captive. Is her kidnapper merely seeking a ransom or does he have something more sinister in mind? Does he know that Winnie's mother is an Oscar-winning actress? Or did he connect her with Jonathan, her famous ex-husband? When the truth reveals itself, Winnie is not only forced to fight for her life, but must also protect the lives of those she loves from the kidnapper's deranged master plan.
An engrossing, darkly humorous, edge-of-your-seat story, The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets explores the dynamic between kidnapper and kidnapped, bizarre reptile lore, and the absurdity of the celebrity lifestyle.
Diana Wagman is the author of the novels Bump, Spontaneous—which won the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction—and Skin Deep. She is also a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times.
Review
The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets tilts on Winnies strength. In her, Wagman has constructed a magnetic figure who is easy to root for
The book also benefits from breathless pace and a dialogue-heavy structure that hints at Wagmans screenwriting experience and keeps the pages turning.”
Los Angeles Times
tense and fast-paced.”Wall Street Journal
Wagmans talent for imagery is well served by the subject matter, and the story is perfectly paced, with humorous breaks in the tension. A PEN Center USA Award winner (for Spontaneous), Wagman has crafted an unusual thriller for psychological crime devotees and fans of the peculiar.”Publishers Weekly
Told from multiple points of vieweverybody but the iguana is representedthe novel is a darkly humorous and occasionally violent exercise in suspense, and a dramatic exposition of the Stockholm syndrome. Wagman does a nice job of lending her characters psychological depth and creating a fast-paced, readable plot.”Booklist
Wagmans (Bump; Spontaneous; Skin Deep) fourth novel shines is in its complex character development. She gives readers an in-depth, realistic look at the psychological factors motivating her characters, from the shallowness of the celebrities to the insecurities of the teenagers.”Library Journal
Wagman has crafted a dark, funny and sensitive thriller that might be the first of its kind: the Oedipal abduction tale.”Book Page
Dark, absurd and hysterically funny.”LA Magazine
Synopsis
From a PEN Award-winning author, an engrossing, darkly humorous, edge-of-your-seat novel--featuring a seven foot iguana.
About the Author
Diana Wagman is the author of three novels and numerous short stories, essays and reviews. Her second novel, Spontaneous, won the 2001 USA PEN West Award for Fiction. She is also a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times.