Scan barcode
procrastinatewithreading's review against another edition
4.5
🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 CW for everything toxic about the 80s.
sean67's review against another edition
3.0
The fourth book by this author, and not much excitement to report yet.
It could be defined as another dodgy romance.
The only thing that could make this more exciting is if the author married a geezer named Mr Eye and had hyphenated name. Now that would be worth keeping the book!
Anyway pretty mundane stuff, I wonder when she gets to the part where she writes suspense...
It could be defined as another dodgy romance.
The only thing that could make this more exciting is if the author married a geezer named Mr Eye and had hyphenated name. Now that would be worth keeping the book!
Anyway pretty mundane stuff, I wonder when she gets to the part where she writes suspense...
karend's review
Oh my. This is an older book, and it shows. Consent is not great though not completely ignored. I kept thinking/hoping that the crime that brings the main characters together would be resolved differently than it was. Some words stuck out to me, as if the author had recently helped a teen study for the SAT, very vocabulary word of the day. I got rather distracted by the details of a plane flight. Yes, things were different in the 90s but I don't remember passengers being allowed to sleep laying down across three seats during landing.
melissabalick's review against another edition
I was thrilled to stumble across a book sale at a library recently. A bag of books for $5? Yes, please! In fact, in middle school, my best friend and I were obsessed with book sales of this nature and we read an enormous variety of books that way, many of which affected me profoundly. I'll never forget the book of dirty jokes I got from a church sale.
These days, I'm doing genre research so that I can write and sell books in these genres. I never got into romance, never read any of them. But they're the bestselling genre of book, so it's kind of essential that I read some.
This one is way better than most of the new ones I've read. It has better-quality prose. But here are some inexplicable (to me) things about romance novels:
1. The guy is a jerk.
2. The woman is a virgin.
3. Readers seem to like things to just hint at rapacity.
This book had the very first instance for me so far of thinking a part of it was kinda hot. It was the opening scene. Erin arrives at the San Francisco home (I pictured one particular house where I used to babysit in SF) of her long-lost brother who was adopted by a different family than she was when they were children. She explains who she is to the man she thinks is her brother, and he responds by kissing her in a not-brotherly way. Good hook! Of course, he's not her brother, he's an investigator trying to track her brother down because he's disappeared after embezzling a bunch of money.
Frankly, I'm so bored by romance novels, what I really wanted was more of the mystery/suspense. I kept expecting to find out who REALLY embezzled the money: the wife? Her parents? Someone else? Nope. It's not a mystery at all. Everything is as it appears. Too bad, but it's fine. It's certainly simpler to write books like that.
Lots of the books I got from the sale are mysteries and horror. I look forward to reading those.
These days, I'm doing genre research so that I can write and sell books in these genres. I never got into romance, never read any of them. But they're the bestselling genre of book, so it's kind of essential that I read some.
This one is way better than most of the new ones I've read. It has better-quality prose. But here are some inexplicable (to me) things about romance novels:
1. The guy is a jerk.
2. The woman is a virgin.
3. Readers seem to like things to just hint at rapacity.
This book had the very first instance for me so far of thinking a part of it was kinda hot. It was the opening scene. Erin arrives at the San Francisco home (I pictured one particular house where I used to babysit in SF) of her long-lost brother who was adopted by a different family than she was when they were children. She explains who she is to the man she thinks is her brother, and he responds by kissing her in a not-brotherly way. Good hook! Of course, he's not her brother, he's an investigator trying to track her brother down because he's disappeared after embezzling a bunch of money.
Frankly, I'm so bored by romance novels, what I really wanted was more of the mystery/suspense. I kept expecting to find out who REALLY embezzled the money: the wife? Her parents? Someone else? Nope. It's not a mystery at all. Everything is as it appears. Too bad, but it's fine. It's certainly simpler to write books like that.
Lots of the books I got from the sale are mysteries and horror. I look forward to reading those.
ameve2's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
elvang's review against another edition
1.0
Bad early 80's stereotypes. Hero is an arrogant a$$hat. Heroine is a doormat. Brown uses as many three and four syllable words as she can find to describe....everything.
stacyroth's review against another edition
3.0
I won this book as a FirstRead.
I have to agree with a lot of the other reviewers on here; I had a hard time believing that Erin and Lance could/were falling in love. I'm glad that we don't have the same expectations of men today as were apparently popular in the 80s. If a man pretended to be my brother and then forced himself onto me like Lance did, there would be a 0% chance of a romantic relationship developing between us.
If you can get past the romantic expectations from when the book is written, this is a good, light read.
I have to agree with a lot of the other reviewers on here; I had a hard time believing that Erin and Lance could/were falling in love. I'm glad that we don't have the same expectations of men today as were apparently popular in the 80s. If a man pretended to be my brother and then forced himself onto me like Lance did, there would be a 0% chance of a romantic relationship developing between us.
If you can get past the romantic expectations from when the book is written, this is a good, light read.
stegan's review against another edition
3.0
This one is a definite ride. Very much of its 1982 moment as part of the radical reinvention of category romance that was Candlelight Ecstasy. The characters read as anachronistic now, but main characters who were over 30 and had been previously married was still entirely new for this segment of romance at the time. There's also (euphemistic) sex on the page, and discussion of abortion. Just three years earlier, this would've been a totally different book! Fun to read through historical glasses.
mrsbooknerd's review against another edition
2.0
Oh, how this book threw my reviewer brain into a tailspin!
I spent 80% of the novel cringing so hard that I worried I would suffer neck pain, but the other 20% enjoying the book. I was so confused!
The dialogue was over dramatic and cheesy. The characters were too much - too sweet and lovely (The sister-in-law whose name I have forgotten) Erin was too stupid and too beautiful and too virginal and even supporting characters like Bart were like a caraciture of a normal character. Big and bold and overly zealous.
I mean really Erin, you spend half the novel lusting over or sleeping with one man, and then wonder why he gets upset when he hears you telling another that you love him, and actually kissing him. I just couldn't warm to her.
Also, everyone had a back story, but it didn't really add to the novel. Erin wasn't just a simple tale of an adopted child who had built up a business and was independent, but she was once married to an old man and had been accused of being a golddigger, and now she was engaged to a man she didn't love. Even the hero had been married before and this was detailed, but again, it never went anywhere. I wanted to see current development, not read about irrelevant plot points.
The remaining 20% of the novel however was clear and classic Sandra Brown. The premise was great, though not well developed, and the chemistry that she packed into the relationship almost made me blush. I devoured it in one two-hour sitting.
I spent 80% of the novel cringing so hard that I worried I would suffer neck pain, but the other 20% enjoying the book. I was so confused!
The dialogue was over dramatic and cheesy. The characters were too much - too sweet and lovely (The sister-in-law whose name I have forgotten) Erin was too stupid and too beautiful and too virginal and even supporting characters like Bart were like a caraciture of a normal character. Big and bold and overly zealous.
I mean really Erin, you spend half the novel lusting over or sleeping with one man, and then wonder why he gets upset when he hears you telling another that you love him, and actually kissing him. I just couldn't warm to her.
Also, everyone had a back story, but it didn't really add to the novel. Erin wasn't just a simple tale of an adopted child who had built up a business and was independent, but she was once married to an old man and had been accused of being a golddigger, and now she was engaged to a man she didn't love. Even the hero had been married before and this was detailed, but again, it never went anywhere. I wanted to see current development, not read about irrelevant plot points.
The remaining 20% of the novel however was clear and classic Sandra Brown. The premise was great, though not well developed, and the chemistry that she packed into the relationship almost made me blush. I devoured it in one two-hour sitting.
annastarlight's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure how to review this book without sounding condescending. It's not my intention to either insult the authors of books like this, or people who enjoy reading them.
That being clarified, this books reads like a daydream fantasy. Something you make up when you're staring out of the window on a long train trip, or during your lunch break when you're having a boring day at work. I have conjured thousands of stories like this, and while they are entertaining, in the end you know they don't make sense at all. This book makes absolutely no sense.
The story starts with the adopted Erin O'Shea looking for her lost brother. When she arrives in San Franscisco unannounced (of course you wouldn't call before hopping on a multiple hours flight) it turns out her brother is suspect of stealing a huge amount of money from the bank he works. Then the story is one string of events, the second even less plausible than the first.
What struck me as odd was the dysfunctional relationship Erin and Lance have. They understand absolutely nothing about each other. One second everything is all sweet words and tender touches and a second later they are in some kind of fight without any inducement. And somewhere in the middle of that on-off thing they draw the conclusion that they love each other. Huh?
You cannot love someone unconditionally when you have just met this person. Yes, you can be in love, but that is something else entirely. Love needs a foundation, a basis on which it can be built. And I just can't stand it when characters in books just decide from one moment to the other they "love" someone. Love is more than that, and it deserves to be treated more carefully.
This book is like a written form of a television soap series. It is entertaining, and a way to escape reality. Only I prefer to escape into a world were there are vampires or dragons or zombies, not into a world where virgins get swiped of their feet by special agents. I can see why these books are popular. They are easy to read and fast paced, without themes that require deep thought. And I repeat, there is nothing wrong with this book, or any other book of this kind. They are just not for me.
That being clarified, this books reads like a daydream fantasy. Something you make up when you're staring out of the window on a long train trip, or during your lunch break when you're having a boring day at work. I have conjured thousands of stories like this, and while they are entertaining, in the end you know they don't make sense at all. This book makes absolutely no sense.
The story starts with the adopted Erin O'Shea looking for her lost brother. When she arrives in San Franscisco unannounced (of course you wouldn't call before hopping on a multiple hours flight) it turns out her brother is suspect of stealing a huge amount of money from the bank he works. Then the story is one string of events, the second even less plausible than the first.
What struck me as odd was the dysfunctional relationship Erin and Lance have. They understand absolutely nothing about each other. One second everything is all sweet words and tender touches and a second later they are in some kind of fight without any inducement. And somewhere in the middle of that on-off thing they draw the conclusion that they love each other. Huh?
You cannot love someone unconditionally when you have just met this person. Yes, you can be in love, but that is something else entirely. Love needs a foundation, a basis on which it can be built. And I just can't stand it when characters in books just decide from one moment to the other they "love" someone. Love is more than that, and it deserves to be treated more carefully.
This book is like a written form of a television soap series. It is entertaining, and a way to escape reality. Only I prefer to escape into a world were there are vampires or dragons or zombies, not into a world where virgins get swiped of their feet by special agents. I can see why these books are popular. They are easy to read and fast paced, without themes that require deep thought. And I repeat, there is nothing wrong with this book, or any other book of this kind. They are just not for me.