Customer Reviews

Dangerous Affair: Dangerous Magic / Affair of Honor

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I know I don't like Jayne's Stephanie James novels, but I can't help myself from buying them when they come out. They are her earliest books and it's fun to read them to see how she has evolved as a writer, how her characters -- (she uses essentially the same sort of outline for her characters no matter what name she's writing under: Book smart woman or New Agey woman who thinks she has it all together and can go it alone until she is confronted by the Alpha self-made male who exudes a quite and deadly power enters her life) have evolved to fit both the decade she's writing in: 80's, 90's or 00's, and the romance genre she's writing for. It's interesting. And not her fault (I hope) that Harlequin is reissuing these books.

Cuz they are bad. Involuntarily close your eyes and do a mental 'la la la la' so you don't have to read them clichéd, formulaic-writing, bad. Afair of Honor was totally unreadable and Dangerous Magic a tiny bit better - but it is sort of like deciding if you like being hit on the left or the right side of the face.

All I can say is shame on Jayne! I have all of her books most in hardback and I am shocked, appalled,and disapointed! Is someone else writting for her, the hero creeped me out, I would hope in todays world no woman would put up with that type of abuse!

I am a great fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, but she missed the boat on this two-in-one. Even though I love books with strong male characters, I found myself frustrated with the overpowering men and their conflicted female counterparts.

Although JAK is one of my very favorite authors, I almost didn't get this book because of the reviews. However, since JAK has never let me down, I went ahead. Yes, the 2 stories are not her best, but I still found them engaging- I read the whole book in basically one sitting. They were not quite a humorous as some of her others, but they moved at a brisk pace. I found Dangerous Magic facinating as it seemed to foretell JAK's own other word stories, as well as bits and pieces of some of her other contemporary. Although Wade was unbelievably overbearing, he had a reason; and Elissa was certainly not your average, everyday woman. Affair of Honor seemed to be pretty typical - Ryder had a bit of haunting past, and Brenna certainly was dealing with her own issues. JAK's familiarity with academic environment was evident in this story. Personally, I loved the not too obvious psychological insights, the frank way the guys went after what they wanted, and how the women held their own.

I'm a big fan of Jayne Ann Krentz - in all her incarnations and noms de plume - but after reading this book I'm not sure I ever want to see another of her works. The first story is absolutely sickening. The "hero" is a total creep who first sexually harasses then rapes the female protagonist. I stopped reading there so I have no idea how Ms. Krentz justifies a relationship after that. I thought we stopped thinking of rape as romance decades ago! Ms. Krentz owes us all a public apology - and a HUGE donation to a women's shelter for perpetuating this myth that rape is a product of uncontrollable desire and overwhelming love. Save your money - and write her publisher!

JAK Were did this come from? I am a big fan of overbearing hero's in a story played against a womans more subtle strength. The story Dangerous Magic is terribly insulting. I can't figure out how any reader is supposed to find any attractive qualities in the hero. Unfortunately the story is told only from the perspective of the woman in the story and it's nearly painful to listen to her thoughts. NO woman, injured, cowed, or just plain stupid would put up with this type of treatment.
And please let me say that the continual usage of the terms Witch and Wolf is sickening!! The use of which is supposed to be dramatic but is just irritating.

For those of us old enough (alas) to remember the '80's, these old novels are almost believable. Bad, but believable. For anyone lucky enough to have been too young for the '80's, you won't understand them at all. And that's a dang fine thing. In the words of the immortal Dorothy Parker, "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. Rather, it should be flung with great force."

Clearly these 2 stories were written in the 80's. Any man who acted as these guys did would already be serving jail time for verbal and physical abuse. I actually forced myself to finish the first story and tried to read the second. I took pity on myself and just threw the book away. Please do NOT waste your money like I did. I'm hoping that Ms. Krentz had no say in the republishing of this crap. Otherwise I would lose all respect for her.

I'm like the reviewer who doesn't really like "Stephanie James" novels but because I love Jayne Ann Krentz novels, I can't resist buying them and I've bought several. Not this time! I saw the book offered and thought Yippee! A new book by one of my favorite writers. But then I read the Editor's reviews and found out that once again the publisher's were just trying to benefit from an author's popularity, and there's a lot of that happening today. Some books are worth re-publishing, but none of the Stephanie James books I've read were - not compared to her recent books. It was good to read the reader's reviews and I quite agree!

I have read the other reviews for this book and could not disagree more. I enjoyed the two stories very much. Affair of Honor is one of my favorite type of stories. The male and female lead characters are both strong, honest and intellent people, that have real depth. The other story is a little more old style and the male character is very strong willed. If you read the whole story you will come to like and understand him. I would be interested in knowing exactly were the rape takes place in the story, I just finished reading the book and I read NOTHING about a rape. If you every read stories written by Jude Devereax, Johanna Lindley, Diana Palmer or Sandra Brown written from the same time, the 1980's, you will find they all wrote the same style back then. The male characters were ALWAYS strong and confident men.