I went into this book thinking that I had a straightforward mystery in my hands. By the time I was done, I found that "Janeology" is so much more. This book is a surprise, and a very welcome one.

Harrington takes a story that is all too familiar to us -- the murder of a child by a seemingly ordinary young mother who simply can't do it anymore -- and examines deeper issues of responsibility, the power of regret, and the ongoing deliberation concerning nature versus nurture. What begins as a courtroom drama evolves into a sometimes heartbreaking exploration of one family's past and the threads, both genetic and environmental, that connect us all to the unseen generations before us.

As a storyteller, Karen Harrington creates believable characters: flawed, fragile, belligerent, and yet ultimately hopeful. Her dialogue, both contemporary and period, rings true. Most refreshingly, Harrington allows her story to avoid obvious paths and easy, instant gratification. When you reach the last pages, you will find yourself in a very different place than you might have anticipated. Different, and deeply satisfying.

As a clinical psychologist, I am often skeptical of stories that try to tease apart the nurture versus nature debate. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Janeology, the debut novel by Karen Harrington, which was both an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable read.

Tom is devastated when his wife Jane, a young and beautiful nurse and seemingly loving mother inexplicably drowns their two year old son. Tom's daughter is left in critical condition as the life he once knew suddenly falls apart. As Tom endures his wife's trial and tries to bury his pain in alcohol, a zealous prosecutor decides to put Tom on trial for the failure to adequately protect his children.

Given the situation and the evidence, Tom's attorney Dave believes that there is only one viable defense, that by exposing Jane's geneology, that she was predisposed and programmed to such violence and that no person could have foreseen.

Enter Mariah, a woman with the ability to see past events through objects owned by the deceased. Although my initial reaction to such a premise was somewhat skeptical, I soon was caught up in the fascinating view of Jane's ancestors seen through their eyes, spanning many generations and continents. This character study about the experiences that forever altered and changed their lives provides a rich character study of how perceptions and behavior patterns emerge through the generations.Harrington does a wonderful job introducing us to interesting, complex but yet flawed characters and gives the reader a greater appreciation of the effects of nature versus nature as well as inherent contradictions in life. I particularly enjoyed the ending which has both surprises and answered many questions while raising other thought-provoking questions of its own.

In sum, Janeology was a wonderful read that left me enriched for the experience.

David Loewenstein Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Author- For the Love of Rachel: A Father's Story

This novel is more than the story of a father and his lawyer struggling to defend an unfair indictment for reckless endangerment arising from the drowning of a child by her mother, Jane. It is a finely-crafted tapestry of family history - of ingeniously plotted stories within the main story - which skillfully illumines a universal truth: the evil that men (and women) do lives after them. It reminds us that each of us is affected by our ancestry in subtle ways of which we may not be fully aware. The choices made and fortune experienced by our parents and grandparents, and those even farther up the family tree, affect our lives in profound and unpredictable ways. Ms. Harrington shows a remarkable ability to create authentic historical subplots and weave the whole into a complex and suspenseful tale.

Janeology is an outstanding achievement, and I look forward to many more fine novels from this resourceful author.

Why do parents kill their children? Mental causes? Physical reasons? What about family history - genealogy? This book presents a compelling story to make you think. The author takes you back in time to explore the nature of Jane's family history. The chapters flow from one family member into the next leaving you curious for more and with a few surprises along the way. Fascinating. Powerful. Thought provoking.

I finished Janeology in two nights, and I'm sorry that I read it so quickly. I wanted more stories about the interesting, multi-dimensional characters brought to life in the novel. Since finishing the book, the characters have stayed with me, and I've wondered how their lives played out. For me, this is the highest compliment that a book can have. Reading an interesting story with fascinating characters is one of life's great pleasures. After reading Janeology, I can't wait for Ms. Harrington's next book.

The most hurtful thing about losing your child has to be re-living the experience over and over again. Tom Nelson, the protagonist of Janeology, is forced to do just that in this haunting debut novel about a woman who kills her own son and her husband, Tom, who battles both the legal system and numerous inner demons to understand how it happened.

Under the spell of depression that knows no bottom, Tom's wife Jane commits one of the most horrid acts imaginable--she drowns their son Simon. Soon after she is sent to a mental hospital and away from the vindictive reach of the authorities, Tom is charged with failure to protect by a legal system bent on punishing someone--anyone--for the crime. The charge not only puts Tom on public display as a monster in his own right, it magnifies his own doubts about his role in the killing. Could he have prevented it? It's a question that he will ask himself the rest of his life regardless of the legal resolution.

The novel takes an interesting twist when Tom's attorney mounts a radical defense in which they cite ways Jane's genetic makeup made Jane's breakdown inevitable, thus absolving him of any culpability for preventing it. The exploration of her ancestry with the assistance of a woman who possesses the ability to see past events through objects owned by the deceased provides great depth to the narrative.

Janeology is a legal thriller about love and loss, but at its core it is a study of how we may all be haunted by our families.

Karen Harrington, the author of Janeology, must have based her new novel on the horrific murders most of us read about several tyears agoin which a mother killed, not one, but three or four of her children. One at a time. As horrifying as the act was, I can still remember thinking how calm and dispassionate the husband was, the father of the three children. He displayed no anger, no sorrow, nothing. And I couldn't help but wonder if somehow his emotional distance had been on display during their marriage, as well, and if that had something to do with the murders. Ms. Harrington explores in depth the horror of such a crime, something the media never undertook to do. And she does it with masterful insight, trying to understand how such crimes can be committed. Beyond an instant of madness, what else deeper inside the people invlovled led to such murder? Janeology penetrates the darkness with characters you care about in a tale that compels you to read from page one to the very end. I highly recommend this book. The question is, can we learn from what we read to stop such crimes from happening again?

An unthinkable crime, and perpetrated by the most shocking culprit. This is just the start, the premise for JANEOLOGY, Karen Harrington's debut novel that breaks boundaries in every direction.

Most books use "how?" or "who?" as the foundation to build tension. Harrington courageously chose "why?"--the hardest question of all to follow to its source. The book leads us through an actual trial within the story, but more importantly, a trial of our own values and judgments.

Even after the last page, after all the loose ends had been cleverly and seamlessly woven together, I found myself haunted and moved. JANEOLOGY had nudged me to think more deeply about those dark areas that we all tend to whistle past.

JANEOLOGY gives you more than you bargained for in a book; the hours spent enlarge you.

I found the book intriguing. The unique way the author wove the past in with the present kept me interested and curious as to what would evolve next. A very thought provoking book on an issue that happens too often in our society. I feel the Author addressed this issue in a way that was compassionate and real.Bravo to this new Author, when will there be another book on this family???

This novel is a solid page turner. As you follow Tom's ambivalence in fighting against the legal system, you know he wants to hide from his troubles, but goes forth for the sake of his surviving daughter. The more invested he becomes in learning about Jane's family legacy in hopes he'll find a blacksheep ancestor (and he does!), the more invested you become as a reader in Jane's twisted family tree. Each family story drew me into the next.

How can a mother kill her own children? It's a horrifying thought. Harrington doesn't make apologies or excuses - but she gives us some amazing insight into the minds of everyone involved and keeps the reader turning pages NEEDING to know the outcome.

Great job.

How many of you were caught up in the arrest, trial, and conviction of Andrea Yates? I was. There was too much about her that hit close to home for me. She was a home school mother like me. I suffered from depression along with other things. Depression was part of her genetic make up. So when I read about this book, I was beyond curious as to the story behind JANEOLOGY.

The book is only 256 pages, but it took me almost a week to finish it. Normally this means the book is dragging or failed to entertain - not so in this case. I found myself reading slower, wanting to absorb the words and emotions of the characters. I paused throughout to reflect back to my feelings during the Andrea Yates trial.

It's hard for me to form the words about I feel because my thoughts and feelings are almost at war with each other. The book brought to light controversial and moral issues. Who is to blame? Has our mental health failed us? Does our genetic makeup predict our future?

I have read so many great books this year and Harrington's JANEOLOGY ranks at the top.

Another thing I want to mention is about the book's publisher. If you are a collector of books, Künati is the way to go. The books are cloth hardcovers which are so rare to find now days. It's such a beautiful book.

I hate the star system--how can I give five stars to a developing novelist when I would give the same to Edith Wharton or Nick Hornby? Compared to the masters, this would get fewer than four stars but that strikes me as deeply unfair because for a novel early in a writer's career, it's terrific.
Janeology raises compelling questions about the intersection of nature and nurture. I would argue that Harrington is discussing nurture more than nature--I don't see elements of biological mental illness in her characters--but the very questions she raises on this are the book's strengths. The story compels you to think and try to take a stand on very difficult questions.
In addition, Harrington writes beautifully. I often came upon sentences I wished I'd written, which is the highest compliment I can pay a fellow writer. (The Yankee Chick's Survival Guide to Texas) I see success ahead for Harrington.

This is a fantastic book that asks the question which has a bigger influence on a person's life nature or nurture. It was a VERY interesting read. I loved it and recommend it. This book kept me at the edge of my seat and I was late going back to the office during lunch because I just HAD to finish the chapter I was reading (a couple of times). I loved the "flashback" scenes and would even love a book that delved further into the characters introduced in the flashbacks.

This is not your typical "ripped from the headline" story of a mother who kills her child in the midst of a depressive episode. It turns into a tale of a husband who is then put on trial himself , to be held for his own accountability in the death of his child. He wasn't even at home at the time of the killing, put the prosecutors go after him because he should have known his wife wasn't stable and they feel he did nothing to stop it! Is he responsible for his wife's actions??? Is she even responsible? His attorney has a very ingenious approach to getting his client off. As someone who has a degree in Early Childhood Education, I have always found the whole debate of 'nature vs. nurture' very interesting. Is someone predisposed to violence because their ancestors were violent? Or because of the way they were raised (be it by their natural parents or through adoption). Ms. Harrington doesn't answer the typical mystery question of who or how....but of why? A unique twist on an old genre. A powerful story that will leave Tom & Jane with you long after you finish the book.

Karen Harrington's suspenseful drama explores the haunting aftermath of Jane Nelson drowning her young son. Her husband, Tom, is charged with 'failure to protect' his children from their mother. He is deeply troubled by the many questions raised following this inexplicable act. His lawyer seeks to prove that Jane's genetic inheritance had a role in creating her impulse to murder, therefore Tom could not have foreseen his wife's actions. A psychic provides fascinating flashbacks into generations of Jane's ancestors. Ms. Harrington brilliantly moves back and forth in the lives of these past and present family members. I really loved this exceptionally well-written novel. It left me deeply and thoroughly pondering the complexities of these crimes. An unexpected, yet gratifying, ending completes this mesmerizing thriller.

Karen Harrington's book told from the point of view of a father whose wife has murdered their son is a facinating look at what makes us tick: our own experiences or an inherited penchant for evil. This one will keep you thinking long after you've finished it. A great selection for book clubs.