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    The Presence
    The Presence
    The Presence
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Presence

    Written by John Saul

    Narrated by Phil Gigante

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Beyond the sparkling Hawaiian beaches, masked by the deceptive beauty of the rainforest, evil awaits sixteen-year-old Michael Sundquist and his mother, Katharine, an anthropologist who has come to the Islands to study the unusual skeletal remains unearthed on the volcanic flanks of Haleakala, Maui.

    Yet far below the black depths of the Pacific a mysterious substance snakes through undiscovered fissures in the ocean floor, as nature itself seems to portend the terror to come.

    Then, with the sudden, unexplained death of Michael’s friend, a disturbing truth dawns: the corporation that is funding Katharine’s dig has a far greater investment than she ever imagined – an investment in medical terror. And her son may be part of their hideous plan…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 29, 2008
    ISBN9781423355922
    The Presence
    Author

    John Saul

    John Saul’s first novel Suffer the Children became an instant bestseller, as have many of the thirty-three novels of dark suspense he has published since. Amidst this busy writing schedule, he divides his time between Seattle, Washington and Hawaii.

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    Reviews for The Presence

    3.5/5

    143 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      Läs inte upp dina böcker om du är såhär jäkla stel.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The suspense, the sadness just drew me in. Exciting till the end.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I'm one of those with cover love. I love book covers just the same as I do movie posters. It's the exceptional art; It simply does something to me...

      And no sooner than I'd seen the cover art for John Saul's The Presence, I had a strong feeling that the story within would too affright ... And it most certainly did. One of the best horror novels I've read to date, The Presence is a bona fide bone-chiller. And I applaud John Saul on his delivering such a great effort. The plot is interesting and fast-moving. And the two lead characters?a mother and her son?are nicely written. I enjoyed this novel, but I wouldn't advise reading it at night before bed.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Interesting premise for one of his books, but the characters just weren’t that well fleshed out. It almost felt like he had some deadline to finish it by. The end was kind of corny too, but all in all it was passable I suppose

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Ugh... Strike 1 for this author. I really want to like his stuff so I will give him another chance (or 2). We'll see how it goes.This book was well written but the story failed to draw me in. It just wasn't Interesting. ?
    • 5/5
      Awesome book with an unexpected ending! ? 5 stars ✨
    • 4/5
      I have been a fan of Saul since I was a child. Starting out with his first books I have worked my way through his catalog over the decades. Several titles slipped by and now I am filling in the gaps of his work. The Presence is a pretty good story. The ending is kind of anti climatic for a Saul story. The characters are bit dry but still believable. I would like to know more of why the villain was doing what he was doing and be able to dig a little deeper in his persona. Other than the latter the story is good and fairly solid.
    • 4/5
      I have been a fan of Saul since I was a child. Starting out with his first books I have worked my way through his catalog over the decades. Several titles slipped by and now I am filling in the gaps of his work. The Presence is a pretty good story. The ending is kind of anti climatic for a Saul story. The characters are bit dry but still believable. I would like to know more of why the villain was doing what he was doing and be able to dig a little deeper in his persona. Other than the latter the story is good and fairly solid.
    • 2/5
      Ugh... Strike 1 for this author. I really want to like his stuff so I will give him another chance (or 2). We'll see how it goes.This book was well written but the story failed to draw me in. It just wasn't Interesting. ?
    • 4/5
      Read as an ebook from the library, however I do own a paperback edition. I liked this one quite a bit. It kept me interested throughout the entire book and I liked the way it ended.
    • 5/5
      This was a lot of fun, and provided a lot of insight into archeology and astronomy, which are almost inexplicably linked together in this story. When a strange skeleton emerges in Hawaii, a mother and son are brought there to figure out what it is, while a deranged businessman exploits a recent scientific find. This was the best John Saul book I've ever read. It has its flaws, but it's still a good read. Definitely a must for Saul fans.
    • 3/5
      Decent setting and plot but kind of predictable. Not one of Saul's best.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the story and the two parts that verged together at the end to come together. I really liked the end concept of what the "presence" was. I did not like the overly tidy epilogue. That took it down a notch for me- I think I would have preferred it to be open ended rather than solved. I still enjoyed the read and minus the epilogue I think it was a good read.
    • 3/5
      Anthropologist Katharine Sundquist moves to Maui with her sixteen year old son Michael to take a job excavating a site on Takeo Yoshihara's estate. Like any teenage boy, Michael just wants to fit in, but his asthma keeps getting in the way. When Michael saves Josh Malani's life in a diving incident, he's found a new friend. For the first time, Michael is accepted into a group; he even makes the track team and is invited on a night dive. That's when things start to change, one by one the boys start to have trouble breathing and die. Meanwhile, in the course of her excavation, Katharine uncovers the mysterious Serinus Project. As Michael becomes ill, his mother must race to make the connection between the mysterious deaths and Yoshihara's experiments. Will Michael's mother and her friend Rob Silver be able to save him? The Presence by John Saul is recommended for all reader's who enjoy suspense and horror; however, the descriptions of animal experimentation may bother some readers.
    • 5/5
      Wow! I grabbed this book at random off the library shelf, and boy did I get a treat! It was like The Island of Dr. Moreau meets Jurassic Park meets the episode of Star Trek: TNG called “Genesis” meets Don Ho. Lots of action, gorgeous underwater scenes, teen stubbornness, and more.Unlike the commenter who dislikes the multiple genres, I enjoyed that aspect of it. Almost every work can be divided into at least 2 genres, and if it can’t—well, it’s probably a boring, narrow-plotted story. I applaud John Saul’s imagination as well as his portrayal of the different characters and their lives. The scuba scenes were described beautifully and the narrative of running made me want to lace up my tennis shoes and start running again (which I should do any way).A wonderful page-turner.