The Return of Jonah Gray

It had the perfect balance of humor and drama from start to finish. The lead character, Sasha, is someone you connect with in the first 25 pages and from that point on you don't want to put the book down. All in all a wonderful read.

A real story about real human people. At times funny, at times frustrating, at times sad, but always authentic and full of genuine insight into the human condition. And isn't that what great writing is about?

Well done story, excellent heroine, fascinating characters and relationships. Much more than I ever expected at first glance.

I loved Cochran's first book - Mean Season - but Jonah Gray is perhaps even better. The complexity and subtlety of the charachter development is every bit as rich and fascinating, yet she explores emotion and the human condition in an entirely believeable and enthralling way. Like Mean Season, it delves into emotional issues without feeling bleak or gratuitiously depressing. I finished it in two days and was hugely sad to see it come to an end, because it's the kind of book you're constantly drawn into. A fantastic story. A fantastic read.

A quirky, troubled, likable heroine, a carefully-paced plot with a compelling human mystery at the heart of it -- nothing's missing here for a reader (me, for one) who loves to dive into a book and not come up for air until it's over. Cochran took on a real challenge by choosing a tax auditor as her protagonist. Fortunately, she meets it by avoiding cleverness and going for the human complexity and unpredictability that's always there if you know where to look for it. It's great to find a new writer who can do that.