Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780515135459
ISBN number: 0515135453
Label: Jove
Manufacturer: Jove
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: July 29, 2003
Publishing house: Jove
Release Date: July 29, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 120801
Studio: Jove
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Product Description:
Rob Smith is the kind of guy--and lawyer--Val Covington knows she should avoid: mysterious, handsome, haunted. But when he tries to help her save a man from being executed, she discovers long hidden secrets-along with an irresistible passion.
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Rated by buyers 
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I love Putney's historical novels, but this book fell flat. Like other reviewers, I was turned off by the constant preachy tone in regards to capital punishment. The dialogue also felt contrived and stilted. This book was lacking in humour and warmth, and I never felt an emotional connection to the main characters. In regards to the romance department, there was very little to recommend it. When I finish a romance, I like to feel as if the characters have a binding love that will stand the test of time. However, I wouldn't have been surprised if this couple broke up a month later. All around disappointing.
Rated by buyers -
I am reviewing the unabridged audio version of this book. And, in all honesty, if I hadn't paid so darned much for it I never would've finished it.
The heroine is a corporate lawyer who is feeling burned out and fears she's going to die inside if she doesn't give up fighting for the "fat cats". As luck would have it, she inherits a windfall of a million bucks (how come this stuff never happens to ME?) and decides to give up the high paying partnership for "do-gooder" work. She takes along her trusty paralegal who just so happens to have an ex-lover in the clinker facing death-row. Ah huh! This is heroine's chance to do some good. So this corporate lawyer immediately takes on this difficult criminal case and hires a carpenter who was a marine in his younger days to assist her. Huh? Did I hear that correctly? It simply did not make any sense to me.
I've enjoyed Mary Jo Putney's work in the past which is why I bought this book and was surprised at the lack of connection I felt to any of these characters here. The love story took a back seat to a whole lot of preachiness about the death penalty and the importance of finding spiritual happiness. That's all find and good in real life but here it was boring. I felt like I had been wholloped upside the head about the evils of our justice system and was rather put off by the whole thing. The only part I somewhat enjoyed was the relationship between the heroine and her "little sister" but even that developed a little too quickly as the heroine managed to break through the girls' defenses in what seemed like only two visits.
This isn't a book I'd enjoy re-reading as I felt very bored throughout most of it.
Rated by buyers -
this mystery book got 2 stars because it had a decent ending, but it was so slow and painful, I'm surprised I even made it to the end. i didnt like the characters and i was especially unconvinced with their no chemistry romance. save your money, buy something else.
Rated by buyers 
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I was fascinated by this book due to the great value for me personally, in the way MIP discussed and analysed the purpose of life and the directions one may choose at certain time of one's life using her characters. As it's major heroes, I feel at the crossroads, trying to find and recapture the values of my youth and to find out what I am to do with the rest of my life. No matter how little (as other reviewers who are probably much younger than I am claim) "romance" there is, this is a deep, helpful, and wonderful book. You cannot evaluate the book on the descriptions of lovemaking only: you have to learn from it as well, and this is one that can gives you both. I wish the author would consider the continuation, something in the way Suzanne Brockmann does to hook up her readers. *** If there a chance to contact MJP personally, I'd love to.
Rated by buyers -
Val Covington, a workaholic city lawyer, decides to break away from her corporate law fim and start her own practice; a windfall from her actor friend Raine Marlowe allows her to decide that she will take on pro bono clients. In leasing her very first premises, she meets good-looking Rob Smith, ostensibly a carpenter, and they start an affair. But Rob is not the carpenter he appears; he's a former Marine and former owner of his own computer business, gone into hiding after a family tragedy. They start to work together when Rob offers his investigative skills to help Val in her quest to prove a man on death row innocent of the murder of a cop.
The romance in this book is very flat. Val and Rob have sex - wham bam - and then they have sex again, and again, and then Rob is suddenly talking moving in and even marriage. Wait a minute... where's the wooing? Where's the heartfelt discussions? Where, for heaven's sake, is the *romance* which Putney includes in spades in other novels? Val apparently has a problem with commitment, but this is told to us - in fact, we're beaten over the head with it - rather than it being shown. And a two-year-old could have worked out why she has this problem; yet it seems to come as a massive discovery to both Val and Rob. Well... duh! I felt like saying.
Sorry - there was really no romance in this book worth talking about. At least, not between the two main characters. The love story which does provide some interest, however, is that between Kendra, Val's assistant, and the man on death row, Daniel, the father of Kendra's now-adult son.
As for the preachy part, this book is a polemic against the death penalty. Now, I should have no problem at all about that, since I am vehemently opposed to capital punishment and find it abhorrent. Putney should have been preaching to the converted here. And yet I felt patronised, lectured to and bored by this part of the book. Sure, all her arguments resonate with me - but that's not why I buy a Mary Jo Putney romance novel. I did find the plot itself, as regards the endeavor to prove Daniel's innocence, interesting but, again, I didn't buy a crime/detective novel. I thought I was buying a romance novel.
I have now read three contemporary novels and one novella by Putney, and in every case they failed to live up to the standard set by her historical romances. Put this subsequent to Thunder and Roses, or The Rake, or The Wild Child, and it pales drastically by comparison. Dull characters, subsequent to the vibrance of Nicholas or Reginald or Clare. Preachy plot, subsequent to her emotional, heartrending plotline about the effect of alcoholism in The Rake.
This was a huge disappointment. And, since I see that Putney now appears to be venturing into paranormal in her latest novel, I am not sure that she will be on my auto-buy list any more either. Such a shame, when about a year ago I'd have rated her as one of my top three favourite authors.
wmr-uk
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