Different Worlds Apart

You know ... seldomly I have been so indifferent to a book as I was to the new one by Nora Roberts. Usually, she either leaves me ecstatic or disappointed with her books, but never indifferent ... until now.

So what is it about Angel's Fall that didn't grip me? I mean I have read the book from cover to cover in just 24 hours and the book has about 480 pages. I really can't put a finger on it. But first things first:

Summary:
After being the sole survivor of a shooting in a restaurant, cordon bleu chef Reece Gilmour slowly patches her life back together. Driving from town to town, working in diners and other greasy spoons, she is a bundle of nerves and paranoia, running away from the violent shooting she only survived barely two years ago.
When she comes to the Wyoming town Angels Fist, she is strangely drawn to it and for the first time in over a year, she has the urge to settle down, even if it is only for a few weeks. She not only finds a job, but a home, love and the semblance of stability and sanity. Until the day she witnesses the murder of a woman up in the mountains.
Her hard fought stability is shattered by events that question her own sanity and chips away at her sense of self and her reputation in town. Is the murderer after her, or does she only imagine things?

Review:
I have to admit, never was it as hard as with this book to get through the first third of it. I really had to force myself through the descriptions of town life and Reece first steps to healing. Only when the first stalking occurs (after the murder) I got hooked on the plot. From then on it was not an easy but an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, half-way through I suspected who had killed the woman. So the ending was not so surprising anymore.
Did I like the book? I guess I do ... though I still feel a bit on the undecided side of it. It's not one of Nora's best books, but it is also not a stinker as it is well researched (depression, guilt, paranoia) and a good read once you get into the rythm of things, but somehow the characters left me untouched.
So, yeah we have poor victimized Reece who almost died in the cleaning cupboard of her kitchen, I felt a bit of compassion for and with her but the others .... either they were coming too short (Joanie) or they were redundant (like Lo). And somehow her male heros are one long string of tall, dark, handsome (though it was a nice touch that he didn't have too sensitive a side) It seems Nora Roberts copies herself. The plot itself is nothing to write home about. Okay, so it has a bit of depth here and there, and offers oh-kay sub-characters, but considering what she has written over the past years, it only seems like a bad copy of her own work. I guess it was bound to happen some day. She has been writing since 1981 and sooner or later she had to fall back on ideas she had already used in books before.

All in all, a good summer read. But hopefully her new trilogy (Celtic Circle) and Born In Death will be much better - well it better be because Born In Death was postponed to November because of this mediocre book called Angel's Fall.

You know ... seldomly I have been so indifferent to a book as I was to the new one by Nora Roberts. Usually, she either leaves me ecstatic or disappointed with her books, but never indifferent ... until now.

So what is it about Angel's Fall that didn't grip me? I mean I have read the book from cover to cover in just 24 hours and the book has about 480 pages. I really can't put a finger on it. But first things first:

Summary:
After being the sole survivor of a shooting in a restaurant, cordon bleu chef Reece Gilmour slowly patches her life back together. Driving from town to town, working in diners and other greasy spoons, she is a bundle of nerves and paranoia, running away from the violent shooting she only survived barely two years ago.
When she comes to the Wyoming town Angels Fist, she is strangely drawn to it and for the first time in over a year, she has the urge to settle down, even if it is only for a few weeks. She not only finds a job, but a home, love and the semblance of stability and sanity. Until the day she witnesses the murder of a woman up in the mountains.
Her hard fought stability is shattered by events that question her own sanity and chips away at her sense of self and her reputation in town. Is the murderer after her, or does she only imagine things?

Review:
I have to admit, never was it as hard as with this book to get through the first third of it. I really had to force myself through the descriptions of town life and Reece first steps to healing. Only when the first stalking occurs (after the murder) I got hooked on the plot. From then on it was not an easy but an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, half-way through I suspected who had killed the woman. So the ending was not so surprising anymore.
Did I like the book? I guess I do ... though I still feel a bit on the undecided side of it. It's not one of Nora's best books, but it is also not a stinker as it is well researched (depression, guilt, paranoia) and a good read once you get into the rythm of things, but somehow the characters left me untouched.
So, yeah we have poor victimized Reece who almost died in the cleaning cupboard of her kitchen, I felt a bit of compassion for and with her but the others .... either they were coming too short (Joanie) or they were redundant (like Lo). And somehow her male heros are one long string of tall, dark, handsome (though it was a nice touch that he didn't have too sensitive a side) It seems Nora Roberts copies herself. The plot itself is nothing to write home about. Okay, so it has a bit of depth here and there, and offers oh-kay sub-characters, but considering what she has written over the past years, it only seems like a bad copy of her own work. I guess it was bound to happen some day. She has been writing since 1981 and sooner or later she had to fall back on ideas she had already used in books before.

All in all, a good summer read. But hopefully her new trilogy (Celtic Circle) and Born In Death will be much better - well it better be because Born In Death was postponed to November because of this mediocre book called Angel's Fall.

Red Lily, the long anticipated last part of the In The Garden trilogy came out on Friday and I got it on Saturday. So today I snatched it up and read it - my fingers and eyes just itched to get my hands on it.
Short summary:
In The Garden is a garden center, maintained by Roz Harper Ashby, a Southern belle of old blood - tough, sophisticated, and in her late 40's. Blue Dahlia, the first in the trilogy, tells the tale of Stella who after being a widow meets the second love of her life while working for Roz. A ghost disturbs the budding love between Stella and Logan and we only see glimpses of the ghost who sings lullabies to babies and young children.
In Black Rose we see Roz finding love with a genealogist who is hired to find the origins of the resident ghost of Harper House. Amelia as the ghost calls itself, gets more irratic and more violent, so Roz decides to get it out of the house, off her grounds. With the help of Dr Mitchell Carnegie, she tries to find out who Amelia is.
Now in the third part, Red Lily, we follow the love of Hayley, a young single mother who works In The Garden and is a cousin of Roz and her family. Again, the resident ghost plays pranks, and while it escalates in behaviour, we find out more of who this Amelia is, we see the love of Harper, Roz oldest son and gardener, and Hayley unfold.
( Cut for possible spoilers )