Comments on: REVIEW: Stranger at the Door by Laura Abbot

By: Yasmine

Yasmine — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:36:06 +0000

I'm with you, GrowlyCub. Real life is too damned sad and hard already; I don't want to find it in my books, too.

By: Sunita

Sunita — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:05:26 +0000

Oh dear. I think I have one or more of GrowlyCub’s books in my TBR. I’ve read a couple of recent Superromances and really enjoyed the more real-life aspects, but I agree that the Everlasting Love series got too carried away with the intergenerational misery thing. Presents and Modern Heat may not be all that realistic, but they are not Lifetime TV-ish, which in my book is much worse. Thanks for the review, though, because aside from passing on this one, I’ll be on the lookout for stories which look as if they would have gone in the EL line if it were still around.

By: Corrine

Corrine — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:05:57 +0000

I’m with you, GrowlyCub. Real life is too damned sad and hard already; I don’t want to find it in my books, too.

By: GrowlyCub

GrowlyCub — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:29:22 +0000

It’s not just infidelity, though. I’m kinda reluctant to say so for fear of being accused of craving escapism, but these books are just too damn realistic in the unhappy department.

Let’s see, one had the hero more interested in caves and caving than the heroine. He marries her sister, she dies, then he has another woman but still expects the heroine to stick around. I still don’t know why I finished that book.

Another starts with the woman’s husband dying on her and another guy becoming the stand in.

The death camp survivor grandparents with the divorcing grand daughter who gets back with her husband through reading her grandma’s diary. Huh?

The one where a woman’s ex shows up requesting her (adult in their 30s) kids be told that they have a dying half brother, so they can be tested to see if they can help him…

I can’t believe I read all these downers…

Thankfully, there are so many much happier books that are full of realistic, non-escapist relationships between people that have to overcome external or internal obstacles that don’t make me want to shoot myself. :)

By: Jayne

Jayne — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:15:18 +0000

I know I haven’t read too many books about adultery (and don’t really want to) so your feelings must be widely held

By: GrowlyCub

GrowlyCub — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:06:14 +0000

I think my problem is with the concept itself. To make it believable you have to have conflict, but I don’t want to read about how couples work through infidelity after they promised each other forever.

I know a relationship is hard work, requires compromise and sometimes bad things happen, which the relationship either does or does not survive. I just don’t want to read about that aspect. I want the part before the disillusion sets in.

I’ll keep to the HEA stories, thank you very much (which in my book does not have to include marriage and/or babies to be fulfilling). You know, I hadn’t realized how scarred I was by that EL I had to finish for that contest… the negative feelings foaming up are quite unpleasant.

By: Jayne

Jayne — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:59:40 +0000

except for the one about the death camp survivors/divorcing couple that I had to read for a contest,

Oh Lawd. Tell me no. That just is so not a a topic for a romance book.

By: Jayne

Jayne — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:57:39 +0000

This is the second “journal” type book I’ve read recently and, guess what?, they were both Everlasting Love books. I didn’t mind so much with this one but a steady diet would not work.

By: GrowlyCub

GrowlyCub — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:50:21 +0000

I just don’t see the attraction. I’ve read several Everlasting titles and they were all blah to bad, except for the one about the death camp survivors/divorcing couple that I had to read for a contest, which was so godawful I cannot for the life of me figure out why anybody would want to publish this as a romance or anybody want to read it, period.

I was glad to hear HQ gave up on the line, not so glad to see they are putting this into the Superromance line, because they are taking slots away from better books.

And that diary thing is getting old fast, as is the older couple/younger couple thingie they have going on in a number of these books. So, either you get a story told by a dead person via diary or a story that’s divided between two couples with neither getting the attention and story time they deserve or both.

Everlasting is an epic fail for me.

By: Jayne

Jayne — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:43:06 +0000

Well, Sarah it sounds like you’ve already read it anyway so no need for a repeat. ;)

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:32:16 +0000

This sounds rather uncomfortably like another Harlequin Everlasting Love I read by Janice K. Johnson. The heroine grows up in the 50s, marries a man who goes to Vietnam, they lose a child, he goes off to think, they separate, etc.,etc.

I’ll definitely be giving this one a miss.