Customer Reviews

To Die For

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Melanie George delivers a riveting and enticing novel with "To Die For." Rarely have I read such a heart stopping depiction of a contemporary romance hero. Although this story occurs in a corporate setting of a successful magazine publisher, the main characters definitely carry the majority of the story. Often, it seems, in a romance novelist's efforts to set the environment of the novel, the reader is deluged with facts and figures and sometimes dragged down in too many details. Most readers, I would presume, read a romance novel for the romance and we want it to be in a believable, accurate setting. But we are not reading the book, as in this case, to learn more about publishing. We are reading about the lives of the people who manage the publishing. This author has created an interesting publishing arena for her story that frames a remarkable romance.

Abby St. James has just inherited her father's business, Bastion, a highly successful gentleman's magazine. Abby has never been involved in her father's business and lives in Idaho. Abby has not lived with her father since her parents' divorce when she was a child. She has lived with her mother, caring for her until her recent death. Abby's twin, Michaela, has both lived with her father since the divorce and has worked for his magazine.

Michaela has a bad reputation with men. She has cruelly used men and actually married several older men, all who have died. Her reputation also reaches to the magazine publishing business where she is known to be vindictive, autocratic, and impulsive to a fault. Through her actions at work, she has alientated the publisher, Stefan Massari, and he hates working with her and distrusts her is all matters. When Abby inherits all of the magazine company, Michaela goes to Europe for an extended vacation and Abby begins working at Bastion. Upon her arrival at work her first day, she is blasted by the magazine's publisher, Stefan, for Michaela's actions prior to her trip to Europe. Abby has no intention of deceiving any one about her identity, but just as Stefan has mistaken Abby for her twin, others within the company do so as well. Almost immediately, Abby decided to keep her true identity a secret to give her time to assess the possible damage her twin has done within the company. Needless to say, no one likes Michaela and Abby contends with her enemies within the company as well as in her personal life.

Stefan is appalled to find he is consistently drawn to Michaela when he has never before. He cannot figure out what she is up to because she is no longer the hostile, demanding, and selfish woman he remembers. Abby is a gentle spirit and as opposite her twin as possible. She is inexperienced with men and basically a very shy person. This is the person that Stefan is drawn to and Abby is definitely fighting a strong attraction to Stefan.

This book is not a light read. It covers a lot of heavy issues such as rape, suicide, illness, sexual perversion, and murder. It is not your typical romance novel. I usually read several novels concurrently. It helps me savor each story if I do not allow myself to rush through a book to see how it ends. This, however, is one book I could not read while reading other books at the same time. It demanded all of my attention. I did not want to quit reading it and did read it non-stop with only one or two breaks.

The hero, Stefan, is certainly dreamy. He is not so much the forceful dominant male we see so often in romances but yet he does dominate any scene he is in because of his immense self-confidence. He is also not your typical rake - he is choosy about who he dates and does not play around just for the sex. He has a very mature personality and carries the role of publisher of this very classy magazine easily. He seeks to understand the motives of a person's behavior and is a well-liked and accepted manager.

Abby is a saint compared to her twin, Michaela. She works hard, treats her co-workers with respect, and offers smart, sensible suggestions. She is thoughtful and conservative and is the type of woman Stefan has always wanted. He has the desire and need to have as his future wife a person he can take care of. Michaela could never fit that role but this new Michaela he sees - does. Yes, he is one confused man.

The romance between Abby and Stefan is bittersweet until Stefan discovers her true identity. The two don't communicate through fighting and misunderstanding. The growth in their relationship is truly touching. The chemistry between the two is rich and tangible. On a scale of one to five, the sensual scenes are a solid four (see "more about me" for sensual rating guidelines) and occur several times.

Any time in the book that Abby and Stefan are on the same page, you have got some great interaction going - even if it is a disagreement. You truly feel their emotions when in each other's company. The story is moving and heart wrenching. Stefan is one of my favorite contemporary heroes. I will definitely keep this book to read again at another time. I could read it again right now. This is the first book I have read by this author and am now looking forward to reading her other novels. Although this book has been referred to as melodramatic, it is still a wonderful story!

This was a dark, fast paced read that I found to be very entertaining but was let down by the lack of suspense. I felt that although the chemistry between the two main characters was great there was a decided lack of suspense to be found.

This was a first time read for me by this author and so I am not sure of her ability to pen a great suspense. Although there was plenty potential for the suspense to be more intense I feel that the author concentrated more on the relationship between the characters instead.

Still in all a good way to pass a rainy afternoon.

This book - to put it politely - is not very good, which is quite a shame since all of the other books by the author are quite fabulous, especially the Devil series. It's as though the author decides one day to write a book on some dark issues, and went about writing it without wondering how she would go about it. Add divorce, rape, murder, drugs and sadism and stir it all together and voila - To Die For. She added a pair of twins, got them to switch identities without explaining really why they had to do that, made the twin who lived in the city incredibly bitchy and the other who lived in the country incredibly sweet, added a guy who hated one twin and fell for the other, and add a stalker who hated both. **SPOILER** And to end it off, have someone almost die of a deadly illness and get a self-centered person save the dying character. A tearjerker? Not at all. If you want to read a romantic suspense thriller, also with many dark issues, there's always J.D. Robb and Julie Garwood is pretty good in her foray into romantic suspense. Give To Die For a wide berth, but read Melanie George's other books.

It's hard to believe that the same writer wrote this book and all the great Devil books. Devil May Care, Handsome Devil, The Devil's Due...all great reads. Like No Other and The Art of Seduction. Great reads. Her two contemporary books (this one and The Mating Game which I could even finish) lack the writing style, the witty dialogue, the great characters. In To Die For, the heroine is a dull, lifeless, boring person and you have to wonder what does this amazing man see in her? This is not true in her good books. I'd say stay away from her contemporary books and read all the others. Like night and day.

TO DIE FOR by Melanie George, A perfect "10"

... This is a suspense/romance book that takes place in ..., Manhattan, New York (how cool!). It is about a set of twins (Mickey & Abby) that trades places and the good twin, Abby, will try to take her place in running a magazine empire along side the yummy hero, Stefan. Stefan hates Mickey & therefore fights his attraction to Abby (not knowing they had traded places) but in the end loses, on top of that he has to protect the woman he loves from a crazed stalker. The author has admittedly said that this book is written dark and not in her normal light hearted style. As many authors often say, the characters had called to her to write it this way and so it must be. I think the author did an awesome job, I'm going to look for all her backlist stuff.

Let me WARN you first, this book deals with the subject of rape and there is a near rape scene. However, it is also a story of survival, healing, sacrifice, hope and love. The story flowed beautifully, the sex was sizzling and tender and the emotions ran high. Get some Kleenex for the ending, cause it will tug at your heart strings, ...

I highly recommend this book, it is a definite KEEPER!

I just finished TO DIE FOR and LOVED it. It's a contemporary, with a virginal heroine who is afraid of men do to an attempted rape in college. The hero Stefan is a total Italian alpha male hunk who mistakes innocent Abby for her not so innocent sister Micky. The sex scenes are sizzling, and I balled my eves out towards the end. It's a bit grittier than most novels, the language is more crued, but I think that made the book more realistic. She didn't tiptoe around anything. You won't be able to put this book down!

Conservative & simple heroine gets involved in magazine business she inherited from her now-deceased & estranged father who her sophisticated & ruthless twin sister lived with. She surprises the magazine employees with her more-helpful personality since she doesn't dispel their mistaken notion that she's her troublemaking twin sister. She is especially confusing to publisher Hero who she's carried a torch for since she was young. Although he's had no problems resisting her twin sister's repeated sexual advances, he is unexplicably attracted to heroine and cares for her welfare esp with her trouble with a stalker.

My 1st George book & I could NOT put it down! It captured my emotions with its gripping romance & action-suspense. Romance was not undermined by the action-suspense stuff. The book was tightly-woven & fast-paced. Sensuality was hot yet captured the sensitive emotional-sexual issues of Hero & heroine. Good character development.

Undoubtedly recommended.

This is my first book from this author. I didn't think I would like it because of the overused plot of mistaken identity twin swapping device.

I only vaguely understood why Abby chose to pretend to be her party girl twin, but there was no real reason for her to impersonate Micky, her twin, since she technically was the owner of the magazine and had promised that she would work there 6 months.

I did enjoy the romance between Stephan and Abby, and the mystery of Abby's stalker in the beginning. However, about the last third of the book changed in tone and direction and not in a real good way. Abby's whole purpose in going to NY in the first place was supposedly to break free from her old life before her illness progressed too much. But much of the time, Abby is still locked in her mental hang-ups of fear of men and the stalker. From beginning to end she doesn't really grow a backbone and reach out for what she wants or stand up to what she believes in. She's a helpless victim and is resigned to being a martyr.

Like I wrote above, I liked the book until the last third. Abby got a little irritating at that point. After Abby walks in on a murder, she stays holed up in Stephan's spare bedroom aboard his yacht for 2 weeks in a self pity party. Why all of a sudden she wakes up and decides to give up her virginity, and why Stefan loves her is kind of a mystery since she's so emotionally distant from him. And her martyr act of refusing to be w/ Stefan during and after her surgery kind of grated on my nerves as well. Her reasoning just didn't make sense in that she didn't want to be w/ him because she couldn't have children. I don't know why she didn't ever consider the option of adoption or surrogacy.

The heroine's downhill personality at the end book dropped the book's rating for me to 3 stars. Despite the heroine's personality, I did like the writing, so I'll be keeping an eye on Melanie George's other books.

It was a good story line, but the leding lady was just weak. She just couldn't make up her mind, yes she was sick but why did she not want him there for her. I just disliked her alot. I was happy to put the book down.

This was a decent book, not the best i have read but not the worst. There was just enough suspence and romance to keep you turning the pages. Loved the tearjerking ending. Not bad!
i also recommend Heartbreaker by Julie Garwood, After the Night by Linda Howard