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REVIEW: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

Janine — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:00:22 +0000

Readers of this review should know that Jill Sorenson contributes f/f and f/f/m reviews to this blog on a once-a-month basis.

Dear Ms. Sorenson,

Contemporary romantic suspense is a genre I can enjoy a lot when a book is well-executed, but most of the time, I don't find myself drawn to reading books in this genre the way I am with some other genres of romance. However, I have enjoyed your comments and posts on this blog, and was intrigued enough by Jane's reviews of your first two single titles that when Jane emailed the DA loop about your latest single title romantic suspense, The Edge of Night, being available for review, I decided to give it a try.

The Edge of Night begins with the discovery of a body in an old schoolyard-turned-gang hideout. Chula Vista police officer Noah Young is the first on the scene. The victim is Lola Sanchez, a drug-addicted waitress who worked at a place called Club Suave.

Lola was raped before she was choked with a clear plastic bag, and even though he didn't know her, Noah wants justice for her. Noah is a gang unit cop, not a homicide detective, but he has his eye on advancement to the latter role. He wants to aid the investigation, and since homicide is understaffed, Noah and Patrick Shanley, his cynical partner, are sent to Club Suave to interview the staff.

Twenty-three year old April Ortiz works at Club Suave to make ends meet. Having been burned by a bad relationship in her past, April is reserved with men and doesn't enjoy wearing the skimpy outfit her job requires, but she can't afford to lose her job. April is a single mom putting herself through a Social Work degree and the income from the work at Club Suave supports Jenny, her five year old daughter.

Just before Noah and Patrick arrive at Club Suave, Eddie, the club's owner, with whom Lola sometimes had sex, hints to the waitresses that he doesn't want the police to learn about his connection to Lola. April can't afford to lose her job, so although she's drawn to Noah, she doesn't give him or Patrick much to go on until they are about to leave. Then she slips Noah a note with information about a gangster Lola was seeing before her murder.

When April gets home that night, she discovers that her mother, Josefa, who was supposed to be babysitting Jenny, went out to party and left the child alone. April knows her mother is addicted to drugs and that she will have to serve Josefa some tough love, but she also knows it won't be easy.

Meanwhile, Noah apprehends Tony Castillo, the gangster Lola was involved with. Tony has a solid alibi – cameras place him crossing the border into Tijuana before the murder, and returning afterward in he company of another man, whose face wasn't caught on camera.

The man is Eric Hernandez, the brother of Jenny's father, April's former lover Raul. Raul is serving a prison term and Eric, his brother tries to look in on Jenny and April and help them out when he can. In addition for selling drugs for the Chula Vista Locos, the gang he belongs to, Eric works at a food market and tags walls with artistic graffiti.

One night, Noah arrives home to find his sister Meghan waiting for him. Meghan has dropped out of Chapel College, a Christian school that her religious mother insisted she attend, just as she was about to begin her sophomore year. Now Megan insists that she wants to live with Noah in Chula Vista, and although Noah knows his parents would disapprove, he gives in to Meghan's request.

Meghan gets a job at the same food market Eric works in, and she and Eric are quickly drawn to each other. But Eric knows he can't get involved with a policeman's sister. Meghan, who does not at first even realize he is a gangster, wants there to be more between them.

Noah and April also face obstacles. After they run into each other at a park, and meet again at Club Suave, neither can deny the attraction between them. But for Noah, involvement with April represents a professional conflict of interest, while for April, Noah symbolizes an even greater risk. April's history with men isn't a happy one, and she doesn't want that history to repeat itself.

An attempted assault on Meghan brings things to a head in several ways. Noah and April, Meghan and Eric all find themselves taking chances in their need to connect, to make their lives better, and to find love and acceptance. But as the stakes gets higher, will the clues about the killer come together before someone else dies?

The Edge of Night is plotted intricately and well, with each of the storylines impacting on the others. One of my favorite aspects of the book was its setting of Chula Vista, which is wedged between Tijuana and San Diego. The book has a strong sense of place, and I love that two of the four central characters are Mexican-American, because sadly, I don't often see Latino protagonists in this genre.

The suspense plot was well-executed. I did not guess the killer's identity until shortly before it was revealed, but the clues were there all along.

The main characters were all sympathetic to me. I liked that Noah was still in his mid-twenties, and wasn't superman. He had some of the impulsiveness and uncertainty of a young man. There were times when he felt afraid on his dangerous job, but he was also brave. My main criticisms where he is concerned is that unlike the other three, he didn't grow or change much over the course of the story, and we also didn't learn much in the way of new information about him.

I liked April even more because she had lived through more, and had made some bad choices she regretted. Her vulnerability and her struggle to support her daughter were so well-portrayed that I even understood why she would take drug money from Eric at the same time that she threw her mother out for using around her daughter. It took April a long time to begin to trust Noah, and I was very glad to see her get a happy ending.

Meghan began the story as a somewhat naÃ¯ve young woman, but she went through a lot and matured. I liked her but what I appreciated most was the way she represented hope and innocence (I don't mean sexual innocence, I mean innocence of crime and other sins) to Eric.

You may be able to infer from this that Eric was my favorite character in the book. At first I thought he was too good to be true for a gangster – the drug dealer with the heart of gold. But gradually, layer by layer, Eric's motives and history were revealed, and I came to understand him more and more and to want him to find freedom from his dangerous world. His tenderness with Meghan, his sense of responsibility for his family members, and his artistic graffiti, all showed a sensitive side that Eric had to hide to function in the gang. His last couple of scenes with Meghan brought tears to my eyes.

My biggest criticism of the book is this: Eric was such a special character that I felt he overshadowed the other three. I felt I'd been shown the way his past shaped him in a way I wish had been shown to the same degree with Noah, Meghan and even April.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

April and Noah were nice, appealing people who deserved to find happiness and I was glad for them, but I think I would have been happier if I had seen them open up to each other on an emotional level to the same degree Eric and Meghan did. Perhaps because a lot of April and Noah's thoughts about each other were based on physical attraction, their relationship seemed less deep to me.

On reflection, I wonder if part of the problem was that it is challenging to portray not one but two romantic relationships, and a suspense plot, with a lot of depth in less than four hundred pages.

Even so, I liked the suspense storyline and loved the flavor of the setting, the ethnicity of April and Eric, the realness of all four characters who were human and imperfect but nonetheless lovable. For all these reasons The Edge of Night gets a B from me.

Sincerely,

Janine Ballard

This book is published by an Agency publisher meaning that the publisher sets the digital book price and there are no discounts.

REVIEW: The Bravo Bachelor by Christine Rimmer

Jane — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:00:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Rimmer:

While you have been a long time commenter on Dear Author, I hadn’t picked up one of your books until recently. I kept meaning too but I never saw your name within the lines at Harlequin I usually perused each month. Jayne’s reviews of various Harlequin books has encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone and so when I saw your name, I immediately snapped up the title. I had no idea what to expect.

The Bravo Bachelor must be a continuation of members of the wealthy Bravo family. Gabe Bravo is the fixer. If there are problems or bumps to the furtherance of the Bravo empire, Gabe sallies forth to smooth the way, eliminate the obstacles in such a charming way that the impediment was apologizing for being there in the first place.

Gabe Bravo, however, meets his match in Mary Hofstetter. Mary owns a small patch of land that was willed to her by her now deceased husband. Gabe’s father has determined that this patch of land will be the site of a future Bravo resort. Mary is pregnant, alone, and cash poor but she keeps saying no because her husband wouldn’t have wanted her to sell and she doesn’t really care to sell either.

Gabe is fairly savvy and recognizes that Mary is not going to be open to flattery and affirmation. “He studied her face for a moment, thinking that his job here would be easier if she were a little needier and not quite so smart.” Instead, he tries to show her the beautiful resort, how it will fit into the landscape and how it will provide her and her unborn child with every opportunity:

Here’s what matters," he told her. "Sell that overgrown hundred and twenty acres out there to BravoCorp at the price I’m going to offer you this morning and you’ll be a wealthy woman. You-’and your baby-’will never want for anything for the rest of your lives. You can go to bed and get some rest when I leave because you won’t have to work. Not today. Not ever again."

I’m convinced, but Mary, not so much.

With another soft grunt, she sat a little straighter. "There are worse things than not having a lot of money. And better things than being rich. Things like a place you love to be. Like having good people to care for, who care for you. This ranch is the place I love to be. And as for having to work, well, isn’t that a lot of what life’s about? It’s true I’m pretty beat today, but I like to work, most of the time. And if I sold out to BravoCorp so you could carve the land my husband loved into pricey half-acre lots, well, I’d never forgive myself." The coffeemaker sputtered. She glanced toward the sound.

In just a few paragraphs you showed me that Gabe was really persuasive and that Mary was more interested in her own principles than the easy way out. The reason why this is so valuable is because this is exactly the conflict that plays itself out later in the book. It’s foreshadowing in a quiet but meaningful way making me realize that every scene is the story was carefully chosen to convey a message about the characters and not just filler. I really appreciated that.

Mary goes into labor shortly after Gabe’s presentation and Gabe finds that he cannot leave her alone. Mary’s mother in law was set to take care of her but Mary is delivering early and the mother in law is gone. Gabe’s innate sense of responsibility requires him to stay by Mary’s side through delivery, through her stay in the hospital, and then settling her at home.

The more time that Gabe spends with Mary, the more that he appreciates her good sense and practical and optimistic look on life. As for Mary, it’s hard not to be persuaded that the grass is blue when Gabe is describing it. Mary and Gabe fall into a physical relationship which suits them both until Mary realizes that she has no place in Gabe’s life; that he has a life outside of the ranch and the baby and that he has never invited her into that part and Mary becomes dissatisfied.

It was interesting to watch how Gabe inexorably tries to take over Mary’s life, to mold Mary into the perfect companion for him. He doesn’t do it because he doesn’t respect or care for Mary, he simply does it because it suits him, it makes his life more comfortable. Mary, though, grapples with her principles against the easy way out (see aforementioned introduction of plot conflict FTW!). She cares a great deal for Gabe but she sees that a continuation of the situation between her and Gabe would result in a loss of self respect, a loss of her own sense of self.

This was a quiet romance but a smart one. I liked both Mary and Gabe. There wasn’t too much of the former Bravo characters. I thought that the relationship progressed naturally and the ultimate point of conflict was very authentic. It certainly encourage me to pick up more Rimmer books in the future. B

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers (up until April 1, you have to buy the ebook directly from Harlequin).

REVIEW: Too Far Gone by Marliss Melton

Jane — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:00:18 +0000

Dear Ms. Melton:

I had read and enjoyed the voice in the first book of yours that I had read and so I was interested in reading the next in the series, Too Far Gone, which picks up where book 2 left off on a couple of secondary characters.

Mother of three, Ellie Stuart, is struggling to go to school and to raise her boys. She rents a home from Navy SEAL Sean Harlan. Harlan is strongly attracted to Ellie but has a no single mother rule because of Harlan’s committment issues. He is supposed to be a womanizer who enjoys the strings free relationships he has with several woman. For Ellie’s part, she doesn’t believe that strong, gorgeous and together Navy SEAL Harlan would want anything to do with her. Her three boys get kidnapped and Sean charges in to help. The story then changes to a road romance as the two set off to find her kids.

Once the two start their search for the kidnapped children, the story started losing me. Ellie and Sean are suspects by those in authority but are not instructed to stay in the area. Instead, they are allowed to go off on their own to find the kids. Additionally, the official mechanism to search for the children was relegated to minority status – so small that it was only there to serve as an impediment to the search and therefore heighten the suspense. The way that this was executed cast a believability problem over the whole story.

My incredulity was further strained by the setup of the antagonists. There is some association in the South called Centurions. This mysognistic group is behind the kidnapping. Their mission is to promote the white male supremacy (but by kidnapping poor white boys?). The Centurion thing felt very manufactured (even if it was based on a true story although I don’t know that it was). Just the whole name and the over the top evilness of the villain and the “network” that the Centurion’s owned throughout the country that infiltrated every part of aspect of power: business, politics, law enforcement. It was like the mob only full of white Southern gentleman who wear white suits when they kill you. The motive behind the kidnapping also seemed specious given that a mysognistic group like the Centurious would be big on on the concept of progenitor.

I appreciate when the suspense is closely tied to reality because the more likely the danger is, the more scary and suspenseful the story. The further that the suspense book gets from reality or the more that I am required to suspend my disbelief in a romantic suspense, the less engaging the story. I don’t think it helped that the suspense was further undermined by the fact that nothing convinced me those boys were ever in danger (ala Ransom). There was danger to Ellie and Sean, but it lacked a feeling of urgency.

The secondary storyline also didn’t work for me because while the reader knows that the runaway teen that Skylar, daughter of a Centurion, meets at a shelter is actually an undercover agent, Skylar only knows him as a, well, runaway teen. Yes, he’s 18 years of age but he appears to be a runaway to her, in need of guidance and love and probably not the lust love that Skylar feels for him. It just felt . . . wrong not deliciously forbidden given that a runaway teen is likely to be emotionally vulnerable.

Finally, I didn’t buy into the idea that Sean’s issues with committment was magically resolved by seeking out the boys’ kidnapper. As if wanting to search for them, wanting to return the boys home to their mother, is enough to convince him to overcome his dislike of long term involvement. Ellie is the best part of the story. She has had one unfortunate experience in life after another. Before her kids are taken from her, Ellie was just getting on her feet. She’s portrayed as this fragile woman with a wellspring of strength that sees everyone through to the final conclusion. I liked her portrayal as someone who, from her mannerisms, seemed likely to crumble at pressure. But her whole life has been about survival and providing for her sons. Her grief at the loss of her boys and her desperate search was genuine and moving.

I can see how this book would appeal to others who view these stories as more escapist fiction. Because of my desire for romantic suspense to be more realistic, that colored my reading of the book. Readers who aren’t so tied to realism in romantic suspense would probably find this a good story. C

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.