Please see the previous post for the synopsis.
Let me start by saying that this book could have been oh so fabulous.
The main problem for me was that I was expecting it to be similar to a Katherine Allred book. Sigh. It so wasn’t.
The book had the potential to be wonderful, but unfortunately, it kind of read like somebody’s English homework. The story didn’t engage me whatsoever, the characters left me cold, and to top it all off, it was a little bit amateurish. I found out later that it was the author’s first book. Sadly, you could tell.
The heroine was an ex plus-size catalogue model called Tara, and the hero was supposedly, a tortured soul called Brent. I say supposedly, because as it happens even though his wife and child had been killed in an accident, I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. His character wasn’t developed well enough for me to care about him.
The basis of this story seemed to be one tragedy after another, and I couldn’t help but feel that the author was desperately trying to draw some deep feeling from me as the reader, thus the hackneyed plots.
The obvious attempt to manipulate and elicit my sympathy and empathy failed miserably. For me personally, the writing seemed to lack genuine feeling, and I felt that the author herself didn’t connect with her own characters well enough to persuade the reader to want to fight their corner.
The conflict that should have had me bawling into my cornflakes merely left me wondering why the hell the hero just didn’t get a grip.
Oh and something else, from the moment they first met, the author seemed desperate to emphasize the passion and ‘lust’ that raged between the lead characters. In every scene where the characters were together, it seemed that the hero’s lust was referenced every second paragraph. The problem? I just didn’t buy it.
As readers, we were supposed to believe that every time the hero looked at the heroine, all he could think about was laying her down and doing her six ways to Sunday, but it just didn’t ring true, I didn’t come away feeling that this was the great love of his life, I just felt that he needed to get laid badly.
I also found that some of the dialogue was overly long. For instance When the hero tells the heroine about the tragedy that was his life, it was done so in a paragraph that lasted more than half a page without pause. Where was the suspense, where was the heartbreak? MIA that’s where.
The good points? I don’t profess to be in the diplomatic corps, so I’m sure you wont be surprised to hear me say that there weren’t any as far as I was concerned. I was prepared to LOVE this book, but unfortunately, it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
Having said all of the above, it would be interesting to see how Ms Colbert approaches her next book, because I still think she has potential.
Angela James
August 9
12:18 am
Sidney Sheldon has a book with this title. I love that book for various reasons. I’m thinking she should have chosen a different title, which has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with the fact that when I saw the title of your post, I thought that’s what book you were going to talk about.
Which leads me to an interesting question of how an author chooses a title, if they care if another book is already called that (I mean, there were two books titled Hunter’s Moon released within the past year)and if, as a reader, I should care. None of which has anything at all to do with what your post is about so excuse my blathering 🙂
Karen Scott
August 9
7:06 am
Angie, I would assume that the authors want to choose an original title, that way people don’t get confused when they’re trying to google search.
Mind you, if Sidney Sheldon (I love Sidney Sheldon)) has a book with the same title, it may lead people actually looking for that particular title to Emjai Colbert, who’s obviously still an unknown, so perhaps the pro’s outweigh the cons if the author is fairly new.
Excuse me for the terrible grammar, but I can’t be arsed trying to write intelligently at this time of the morning (g)
Anne
August 10
8:39 pm
Karen, Now I’m really glad I didn’t buy this book because I was talking to a friend of mine and mentioned that I was going to get this book. I so don’t see that happening now. Thanks for the heads up!