Customer Reviews

Before Sunrise (Mills and Boon Shipping Cycle) (Mills and Boon Shipping Cycle)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Diana Palmer has written a book unlike anything she has written in while! Even though the heroine is a vigin(would you expect anything else) the storyline is passionate and intense. The words flow smoothly. I was so impressed. I am a die hard Diana Palmer fan,even though recently I have felt that that she was just recyling and changing the title! I think Jacobsville(Long Tall Texans) has been done to death!!!!!!!!!Thank you for a great read!

In 1997 in Chenocetah, North Carolina, Native American cultural anthropologist Phoebe Keller, curator of the Chenocetah Museum, receives a call from a claimant saying he found a Neanderthal skeleton on the reservation. She is skeptical because a development dispute is brewing but before Phoebe can arrange testing of the alleged prehistoric remains, the person who called her is murdered with his body left inside a cave. FBI Agent Jeremiah Cortez leads the investigation.

As a college senior three years ago Jeremiah felt a deep attraction to Phoebe that she reciprocated. However, he broke her heart as both went on with their respective lives. As they work together on the investigation, they fall in love even while the danger mounts from those who want to hide the entire truth.

This is a terrific romantic suspense using a Native American background to enhance the plot. The lead sleuths make a fine team though both struggle with the ardent simmering desire for the other; their relationship seems like a throwback to a simpler romance novel yet is extremely complex as expected from fully developed protagonists. The who-done-it is cleverly designed to keep the audience alert although a twist late in the tale seems off kilter. Still readers will appreciate Diana Palmer's strong police procedural contemporary romance.

Harriet Klausner

Basically I liked this book--the story and the characters, but felt a little cheated by Ms. Palmer's aversion to in depth research and the character turns. Firstly when we met Phoebe and Cortez in another book, Phoebe was a very strong woman. I hardly think that she would have gone off the deep end the way she was portrayed in this book. Somehow I can't see her cutting her hair, moving to a small town and wearing dowdy clothes. Cortez is a fascinating character and I felt Palmer developed his psyche much better than Phoebe's. I felt the research done on stolen artifacts and how law enforcement works in general was poor. The dialog was stilted whenever she dealt with stolen artifacts and the law enforcement scenes. She called them "loot" several different times. Does anyone use that word anymore? I also, this is a pet peeve with this author, wish she'd talk to someone about fashion. She calls Aigner a pricey french designer. Maybe at one time, but in today's fashion world this is not true. She'd have been better off saying Chanel or Gucci. Ms. Palmer is a well enough known romance writer that she could pick up the phone and call her chief of police, the FBI or even the library to do a better research job. As I said earlier--I actually liked the book, but then I would come upon stilted dialog, words that are rarely used in today's vernacular and the book would hit a jarring note. Please Ms. Palmer--do your research.

I was glad though that Phoebe was a more faceted character than many of her females. I've been on a Palmer reading spree and I've gotten very tired of big, strong, mean man fighting his attraction for mousy secretary type. This was more a meeting of equals.

Jeremiah Cortez is one of the most haunting heroes I have ever read about. He stayed with me for day - his tragedy, his sacrifices, his need for a love he thought he didn't deserve. Phoebe, crushed by what she saw three years ago as his rejection, dragged herself back from the rbink of emotional destruction to build a new life for herself. Then circumstances forced a reunion with Jermaih, a situation that forced them to work together closely. Lose your heart to them as they sturggle to build the relationship once lost.

This is my first Diana Palmer book so I didn't have any expectations going into it. I greatly enjoyed the book and will be reading more Palmer books, particulary the one that introduces Jeremiah and Phoebe. Of course I live in Nashville so any book that starts off with Tennessee as a setting is okay by me.

I don't mind seeing negative reviews for a book, in fact I have written some negative reviews myself. However, the reviewer who said she was not into romance novels and then gave this book a negative review sort of disturbed me. I don't like Science Fiction. Therefore, I am not going to read a Sci-Fi book and then write a negative review. I don't think that is fair!

I liked Jeremiah and Phoebe and basically I liked the story line. I know Ms. Palmer had to get the heroine isolated so the killer could get to her but when Phoebe blithely gives her bodyguard the slip so she can go home early and prune her roses I will admit that I had to roll my eyes. Come on now, would she really be that stupid? After all she has already been shot right in the peso! And I'm no gardener but November seems a strange time of year to be pruning roses.

One secondary character I really liked was Alice Jones! I laughed out loud when she did the postmortem on the Thanksgiving turkey. If there is a book about Alice I will definitely be getting it! I would like to see her paired up with Drake. In this book Drake seemed to be leaning toward Tina, but I have to admit her nasty juvenile behavior when she thought Phoebe and Drake were an item and she threw all of Phoebe's clothes in the middle of the floor turned me off toward her big time! Tina needs to do some serious growing up and then perhaps she can get together with the policeman she had been dating back home. I just flat did not like her!

SO many of dp's books has the nasty hero with young naive heroine. I liked Cortez. He was not as cruel and nasty as the hero's in some of the other books. Yes, he hurt Phoebe but there was an understandable reason. IF he had been honest with Phoebe, she wouldn't have suffered so much hurt but then we wouldn't have a story. Even if there wasn't as much depth to the characters, I still enjoyed the story. I did have trouble believing Phoebe would put her life in danger just because she was angry with Cortez and his cousin who yes acted like a brat but you don't take life threatening chances because you're angry with someone. Then again I suppose it was necessary for the story. It's still a good read!

To contradict what another reviewer said, I hope Ms. Palmer NEVER changes her "formula" for her stories - it's what has kept me (and many, many others) coming back for decades. The tale of Phoebe and Cortez is dynamite - just like their chemistry! I love how noble Cortez is, and how loyal he is to his family. And how Phoebe refuses to compromise her values and what she needs in a commited relationship. This is one steamy read, and I recommend reading After Sunrise first to get the background on this great couple. Keep 'em coming just like this, Ms. Palmer, and I'll keep buying them!

Ok - this was a pretty good book. The cool thing about it is the male lead, Cortez, a stoic and intensely private Comanche with waist length hair, who is working and/or has worked for a number of governmental agencies in some possibly dubious capacities. He in turn is strongly attracted to a blond, blue-eyed anthropologist from his past that has stumbled upon a murder on an Indian reservation. Some of this story is predictable and I've read other of Palmer's books that practically smoked from the sexual tension, however, this book definitely had its strong points as well.

Cortez was fine, goodlooking, smart, and all that, and Phoebe was great, although I don't understand why D.P. likes such an age difference between her characters (it's believable in past centuries because it was so common, but not sure about present day).

I was starting to get annoyed with these two kissing passionately, then stopping, over and over again.

The actual story wasn't bad. I live in NC and find Native American history fascinating.

But like many of D.P.'s books, (which I've complained about before), the dialogue is so formal, it doesn't seem at all how someone would talk.

I found this story very enjoyable. I own and have read most of Diana Palmer's book. If you are a fan of her others spy or FBI stories, you will enjoy this one too. The characters in this story were first in other of Diana Palmer's books, After Midnight. Cortez is a Native American and FBI agent. Phoebe is an archeologist, who specializes in Native American culture. They meet when she is in college and don't meet again until both of their lives have changed alot. This is a story of a murder on a reservation and Cortez comes to investigate. Phoebe lives in the town near the murder. Their interaction is very sexual and hot. Also an interesting murder/robbery story.