Customer Reviews

Cold Dawn

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I usually like Carla Neggers books and was excited to be able to review this one. Unfortunately, the book did not meet my expectations. I felt as if the author could not make up her mind as to the theme; she couldn't decide if it was a complicated romance, an arson mystery or a continuation of her previous books. I enjoy romances and do read them often. I love to try to figure out "who done it" in all the mysteries that I read. I also like series where the same characters appear and develop. Here, she didn't achieve any of her attempted goals. There were several troubled love stories. With so many characters involved ( I eventually lost count) and switches between the coasts, I felt as if I should keep a list of who was dating or wanted to date whom and where they currently were. The mysterious fires were obviously set by a character who kept miraculously appearing and doing everything but wearing a sign that he was the culprit.There were frequent references to other stories, from her other books, that made the plot more confusing. I finished this book as I was obligated to review it, otherwise I would have stopped by page 100 - sorry to say, but this was not one I would recommend.

Sorry Carla, but this one needed a huge rewrite. To write a great book a writer does not need to include every little detail about what someone did and everyone involved in their lives. Authors are often told to write a book and then cut out two-thirds of it. Unfortunately here, no one helped this author edit. At all.

I am exactly half way through the book and the only thing that has happened, as of yet, is that a man has been found dead. And he died before the book began, and was found on page 20. Why it took us until page 20 to find him is a problem of editing. And of burying the lead. Which, as Neggers is a former journalist, should have her shuddering. Actually, I'm shocked that so much has happened outside of this book. Murder, sex, breakups, more murder, arsons, etc. The list goes on. While I know that some of these incidents may have happened in other books, sometimes a replay is really appreciated. Even when I've read previous books in a series, flashbacks and memories and dreams that the characters have are easy ways to show us more of the story. Instead, this book was all tell tell tell.

Also, the fact that there are approximately 20 different characters, half of whom keep namedropping the vice president's family, even though they haven't been introduced to us, the readers, is another problem. All of these characters are talking at once and it is driving me freaking crazy. This needed to be two different books for all of these separate stories and it needed to be cut way way way down. There could have been a lot more action, a lot more thriller, as well as some more steam between the two main characters, all without leaving Vermont or hanging out with all of these random characters I didn't care about.

Who was the editor for this? Because they were asleep on the job.

I received this book for review from the Vine program. Here's my take on it:

This is my second Carla Neggers book to review (and also the second in a series). Cold Dawn is a romantic suspense set in rural Vermont. Neggers does an outstanding job of using atmospheric mood and setting. One can almost feel the cold, the lonely harshness of Vermont in February.

Cold Dawn is the third book in the Black Falls series. Like The Whisper, this story suffered from a cast of thousands where I didn't know who was involved in what and couldn't follow the events. This is not a stand-alone book. I felt to fully understand the story, it is necessary to have read the two stories preceding this one. I liked Rose, liked Nick and the past relationship they had to work through, however, all the other characters muddled the story and made it difficult to follow events. Suffice it to say Rose, a search and rescue expert discovers a body burned almost beyond recognition in a nearby cabin and Nick, a smoke jumper in Southern California who has come to Vermont to discover (partly) if he's after a serial arsonist and (partly) if he can rekindle his relationship with Rose, the sister of his business partner.

I felt the connections between events were vague, and when additional suspects were introduced, their motives also seemed vague. At the conclusion, I couldn't see the villain's motive for his actions, so the entire story did not jell for me. I also did not find the other characters compelling enough for me to want to read the previous books to learn where they fit into this story.

This particular story seemed convoluted with most of the characters somehow involved in secret government or military operations, making keeping track of them impossible. I wish I could give this book a higher rating because Ms. Neggers is a fine writer. I suggest you choose a non-series book or read the series book in order of publication.

What can I say. Every time I picked the book up to read more of it all I could think of is 'what a boring book'. I finally finished reading it one night and the next day thinking I still had to finish it, picked it up and couldn't understand why my bookmark was missing and I kept trying to find where I had left off reading. Then it dawned on me that I had finished it. That tells you how exciting the ending was. I have read literally thousands of books in my life and have never had that happen before.

This book had way too many characters thrown at you. Apparently it is part of a series, but a good series book can be just as good read independently of the other books as reading it after the previous book in the series. Because of all the characters and no smooth way of helping you get to know them it was distracting for the story.

I couldn't understand the dynamics of the main family, especially as the book is set in current time. The sons in the family apparently thought that they had to monitor their younger sister's dating relationships although she was a woman living on her own, supporting herself, and at least in her mid to late 20's. Isn't this kind of view of little sister a bit outdated? Also the book was partly about tracking a serial arsonist. Why this family felt the need to track this guy down and why they felt that he was targeting them was a beyond belief also. I think this was possibly revealed in the ending of the book which I couldn't even remember reading. The romance in the story was apparent from practically page one, so no mystery there. A difficult book to understand the thread of the stories in it and as I said before boring beyond belief.

I've got many of Carla's books in my keeper cabinet. This one will not find a home there. Way too many characters, way too many situations (do they need to trip over bodies every time they take a walk?), way too much main character angst. I sighed this morning when I saw that I've got a hundred pages to go. If I hadn't paid full price for it, I wouldn't even finish the book. Please, Carla, stop writing series books. I don't care enough about the left over people from this book to want to find out what their future holds.

This book became more boring as I kept reading it. The complex relationship of many characters created a lack of caring about any of them! The love interest(s) has obvious ending....for all of them! The complex mystery is so improbable that I lost interest. I hate not to finish a book, so I did. I found it amusing that another reviewer picked up book to finish and found they already had....I did the same!

Carla Neggers is an excellent writer however, in this book there is wayyyyy too much back story and you are almost halfway through the book before you really get to the action and adventure and she really shows off her talent. There are men in the book, 2 of them really interesting and that added a nice part to the story , however, the backstory was too long, too descriptive and too involved. Give me a new story with new interesting characters and leave out the past history. I love you and you are a great writer but this one did not get it.

This story of murder is very convoluted, with threads of potential action and intrigue simultaneously set in Black Falls, Vermont and Hollywood, California. It involves among other things a search-and-rescue expert, two tough smoke jumpers, a secret service agent, a couple of drug pushers, the genius son of the vice president and a pain in the sit-down, a disabled navy SEAL and the visit of the vice president and his family to Black Falls.
Lowell and Vivian Whitaker were very bad people that had managed a murder for hire business in the Black Falls area. They hired only the best but their business has been violently closed down, leaving some powerful residuals. It appears that those residuals include at least one serial killer that is continuing to practice their craft. People continue to die and everyone is a suspect.
Nick Martini is a wealthy businessman and a smoke jumper. One night a few months ago he shared a night of passion with Rose Cameron, a member of one of the solid families in the Black Falls area. Both consider that a mistake yet the fire between them still smolders. Rose has traveled back to Black Falls and now Nick has also gone to Black Falls to track down his suspicion that there is a serial killer on the loose that uses arson to perform the deeds.
Bouncing back and forth between California and Vermont, there are so many plot threads in this story that it is sometimes hard to keep all of them straight. The love between Nick and Rose is only one of several love affairs that complicate it. While the story is interesting it suffers from the constipation of excess characterization, there is just not enough page space to completely cover all of the characters in the story, although the author tries to squeeze it all out. This causes the action to slow down so that a specific character can be given some time, especially to expand out yet another love issue. This would have been a much better book if a few of the characters had been toned down a bit.

Have read several of her books but this one is way too difficult to follow....Even at 50% complete I was still having trouble remebering all the characters!! Way too many people......a family with 4 sisters, a family with 4 brothers and one sister, friends, and other characters who are not even related!! Just too many people to keep track of...made the plot less important! I was people counting all the time.

When Rose Cameron finds a body, burnt nearly beyond recognition, the small town of Black Falls, Vermont fears a killer could be a on the loose-again. Smoke jumper Nick Martini joins the community from California after an arson investigator is killed, a hunch that the death may be connected to the recent Black Falls murder. Now, Rose and Nick must deal with the one night of passion they shared months ago, to figure out if it could be anything more. But with Nick best friends and business partners with one of Rose's highly over protective brothers, neither are sure the relationship could work- or if they really want it to. But both need to push aside their feelings of lust and romance and catch the killer lurking in Black Falls.

I knew Cold Dawn by Carla Neggers would be on my Favorites List after the first chapter. Even though this mystery novel is part of a series, readers will easily be able to pick up with the characters and the plot even if they have not read the previous books. The suspense was enough to keep me up at night, frantically flipping the pages to figure out who the murderer was and how all the subplots would tie together. The romance between the lead couple was very well written, full of drama and cliff hangers at the end of chapters, that kept me hooked on this story. My only issue was the amount of characters that contributed to the story, I began to feel overwhelmed after trying to keep track of all of them! But besides that little fact, this is a great story that gets a definite recommendation from me. After reading Cold Dawn, Carla Neggers has shot to the top of my favorite authors list!