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Conclusive proof that Anne Stuart is just not for me, though the force of her obsessions do make her books compelling reading even if you hate every character in them and want to lock up the heroes and give the heroines feminist consciousness-raising, anti-domestic violence training, and self-defense lessons. But though I love many fictional dangerous men, including the occasional former mass murderer (if he had a good reason for it) and would not be able to resist Daniel Craig's James Bond despite the knowledge that women who have sex with Bond have a higher mortality rate than deep sea wreck divers, Stuart's heroes strike me as creepy and unsexy-- not so much the fantasy of the hot dangerous man, but the reality of pathetic women writing love letters to Ted Bundy.
That being said, when I discovered that I had another Stuart novel on my bookcase and started flipping through it late last night, I was unable to turn off the lights until I was done, several hours later. But that is the last one. No, not even the tempting prospect of the one where the hero is a secret agent who sleeps with other men if his job requires it. (Does anyone know of any other book that has that as a plot point but isn't written by Stuart? Because I would be all over it.)
Richard Tiernan, the tall, dark, handsome, and totally bugfuck insane hero, is out on million dollar bail (!) after having been convicted of the murder (!!) of his pregnant wife (!!!) He was also widely suspected of having murdered his two children and mistress (!!!!) but not charged with that, because they disappeared without a trace (!!!!!)
(You'll have to take the exclamation points as read after this, because I think I just wore out the key.)
Richard has been bailed out by sinister writer (OK, just one more-- !) Sean O'Rourke, who wants to write a book about him and so is keeping him in his house (can't resist-- !!) Sean invites his daughter Cassidy over to stay, as, it turns out, the deal Richard and Sean made was that Richard would tell him about the murders if Sean pimped out Cassidy to him (sorry-- !!!)
Believe it or not, it gets even more improbable later. (Although, weirdly enough, all this cracktasticness turns out to be thematically self-consistent within its own insane parameters.)
My big problem with this book was not so much the totally unbelievable plot, which was not merely preposterous in whole but absurd at every turn, but that I detested every single character in it. Richard is a charm-deficient asshole, Cassidy has the sense of self-preservation of a lemming, and don't get me started on the supporting characters. Consequently, I neither believed in nor cared about the romance.
And the revelations at the end, though, as I mentioned, were thematically consistent, made no logical sense whatsoever.
So, it turns out that Richard's wife was pregnant by her father, was abusing their children and planning to pin it on Richard, and was then going to pimp out their children to her father. So when she impales herself on a knife, rather than call an ambulance, he spirits away the children into the care of his mistress (!) and then doesn't defend himself until the mistress needs to go away for medical treatment (!) and he then tells Sean he wants Cassidy for sex, but really wants her to take care of his kids after he's executed (!)
I do not see how a) this makes him look worse than being a murderer does (it does make him look crazier), or b) this will work out better for his kids than telling the cops the truth and requesting a DNA test on the fetus to prove the incest.
...at least the theme of "parents pimping out their children" was consistent.
That being said, when I discovered that I had another Stuart novel on my bookcase and started flipping through it late last night, I was unable to turn off the lights until I was done, several hours later. But that is the last one. No, not even the tempting prospect of the one where the hero is a secret agent who sleeps with other men if his job requires it. (Does anyone know of any other book that has that as a plot point but isn't written by Stuart? Because I would be all over it.)
Richard Tiernan, the tall, dark, handsome, and totally bugfuck insane hero, is out on million dollar bail (!) after having been convicted of the murder (!!) of his pregnant wife (!!!) He was also widely suspected of having murdered his two children and mistress (!!!!) but not charged with that, because they disappeared without a trace (!!!!!)
(You'll have to take the exclamation points as read after this, because I think I just wore out the key.)
Richard has been bailed out by sinister writer (OK, just one more-- !) Sean O'Rourke, who wants to write a book about him and so is keeping him in his house (can't resist-- !!) Sean invites his daughter Cassidy over to stay, as, it turns out, the deal Richard and Sean made was that Richard would tell him about the murders if Sean pimped out Cassidy to him (sorry-- !!!)
Believe it or not, it gets even more improbable later. (Although, weirdly enough, all this cracktasticness turns out to be thematically self-consistent within its own insane parameters.)
My big problem with this book was not so much the totally unbelievable plot, which was not merely preposterous in whole but absurd at every turn, but that I detested every single character in it. Richard is a charm-deficient asshole, Cassidy has the sense of self-preservation of a lemming, and don't get me started on the supporting characters. Consequently, I neither believed in nor cared about the romance.
And the revelations at the end, though, as I mentioned, were thematically consistent, made no logical sense whatsoever.
So, it turns out that Richard's wife was pregnant by her father, was abusing their children and planning to pin it on Richard, and was then going to pimp out their children to her father. So when she impales herself on a knife, rather than call an ambulance, he spirits away the children into the care of his mistress (!) and then doesn't defend himself until the mistress needs to go away for medical treatment (!) and he then tells Sean he wants Cassidy for sex, but really wants her to take care of his kids after he's executed (!)
I do not see how a) this makes him look worse than being a murderer does (it does make him look crazier), or b) this will work out better for his kids than telling the cops the truth and requesting a DNA test on the fetus to prove the incest.
...at least the theme of "parents pimping out their children" was consistent.
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!!!!!
O_O
Have no comments that don't consist of ! or O_O or complete bogglement.
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I dunno, sounds like pretty standard A&E true-crime fare.
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I couldn't put down Nightfall, but I hated the characters and the plot and the revelations. It was like watching a really gruesome car accident. Can't not look. I expected a bunch of people, including the hero, to turn out to be villains.
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Cracktacular, indeed.
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She did another one for Onyx about some guy who is running a creepy cult but turns out to have been manipulated by some other people, I think. The heroine in that one is much less dishraggy but also extremely neurotic and annoying.
I still plan to read her one about the Phantom of the Opera.
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There was no sign of stuff like that (that I can remember anyway) in the sole Stuart book I read.
Here's what her site says about Nightfall and Moonrise:
"Nightfall (1995) and Moonrise (1996) were two landmark books. Written after the deaths of Anne’s brother and nephew, they were very dark, the unnofficial start of her “men who kill and women who love them” phase. Extremely dark and extremely sexual the two books won many fans. Nightfall was the story of a man convicted of murdering his wife and children, out of prison on appeal arranged by a ego-centric author (think Norman Mailer) and the author’s daughter, who’s appalled, mesmerized, and totally destroyed by the hero."
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- I think I need to put my mental energy towards more productive things, like acquiring toy ducks for my video game character.
These reviews are very unsettling.
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!!!
'Cause, wow, that is some crack.
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Seriously, who could?
Meanwhile, I will just boggle quietly in the corner over the rest of your post.
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