Customer Reviews

Don't Look Back

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

"Don't Look Back" presents Lavinia Lake and Tobias March ("Slightly Shady") with a new case for their fledgling company which conducts " inquiries of a personal and private nature." An old family friend, Howard Hudson, hires Lavinia to discover the murderer of his wife Celeste and to find the missing artifact known as The Blue Medusa. The plot of the novel is rather straight forward with very few turns and twist. Anyone who is a fan of mysteries will almost immediately be able to figure out who the murderer is and how the Blue Medusa was stolen. And of course, the reader is left with the knowledge that there will be a third book in this series.

For me the more interesting aspect of the novel were the characters. Lavinia and Tobias are equally stubborn and controlling which causes constant clashes as their love affair grows. Tobias, a man of mystery, but not quiet mysterious enough, has the urge to be absolutely in control of Lavinia's actions in order to protect her. However, Lavinia, the typical Quick heroine, a 21st century woman in Regency England, does not wish nor feels the need to be protected. The secondary characters, Anthony, Tobias' brother-in-law, and Emeline, Lavinia's niece, have now fallen in love and are in the process of developing their own personal problems. Both characters are still rather shallow without a lot of personality, but I suspect we will see them again and hope that they will develop more in the next book. Mrs. Chilton, the housekeeper and the buyer of currants provides the reader with some comic relief and a wishful longing for the old Amanda Quick who wrote "I Thee Wed", "Mistress", and "Seduction".

Amanda Quick seems to have changed her writing style in her last four novels. Her plots were never exceedingly strong; however her characters were very well drawn and had, for a lack of a better term, real life in them. They were delightful and drove the story rather than the plot driving the story. Now we have characters who are just there. They show sparks of life, but that is about it. Regardless,"Don't Look Back" is worth reading while on an airplane or sunning on the beach. It's a formula book, or what I call Bubble Gum for the mind. It doesn't require a lot of thinking, but it can entertain. I can only hope that Ms. Quick isn't resorting to lack luster books to satisfy her publisher's deadlines or to simply make money. I long for the old Amanda Quick whom I read when I first started to read romantic novels. I hope she will appear again.

This was a delightful book and I enjoyed reading it however I miss the passion and sizzle of her earlier books. The characters are like old friends if you read the first book. Lavinia and Tobias are like a cat and a dog trapped in a bag when they are tying to solve this case but when the passion ignites between them you find yourself looking for a bed for them.The plot is very interesting and the villian believable. This book was enjoyable but I borrowed it from the library instead of purchasing it. I would purchase this book as a papperback but not hard back.

I found this latest Lake & March installment, DON'T LOOK BACK to be utterly boring, a real sleep-inducer. I agree with one of the previous reviewers who wrote that the characters are not very likeable. In fact they have become measurably duller, dimmer, shallower, and crabbier since their last appearance in SLIGHTLY SHADY. There is NO tension in this book and the dialogue is imminently forgettable. I was particularly disappointed because I thought that JAK was finally getting her groove back with SUMMER IN ECLIPSE BAY, which was really pretty good.

For those of you who have been reading JAK forever (like me), DON'T LOOK BACK is a tepid, uninspired reworking of her Guinevere Jones series published in the late 80's with a change of setting and the now de rigueur, motif-du-jour (hypnotism & Gallo-Roman antiquities).

I hate to say it because I hate to think that I've continued to pay top $$$ for JAK's mediocre hard covers all these years ... but the last book that she wrote that really zinged me was "The Golden Chance" in 1992. Just about everything else since then has been a gimmicky, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, self-parody of one or more of her earlier writing successes.

Recommendation to new readers: Skip the recent stuff and find JAK's back list previous to 1993. You won't be sorry.

I din't like these characters in the first book. Didn't need to see them in a second. Expected more from all her latest. They are not holding my interest as the earlier novels did. Will probably continue to purchase Krentz novels, but will not rush out as I used to.

In the sequel to SLIGHTLY SHADY, Quick doesn't introduce new characters, which I think contributed to my rating of the book. There is less of that "falling in love" feeling present than characters who have just met.

There is more mystery in this book than any of her other books, and not enough romance was written into it. Although I am fond of mysteries, the romance seems to an afterthought that was not insinuated well enough into the plot.

Despite all of this, I read through the entire book, and I will still continue to sit on the edge of my seat to wait for the next one, as I do love Amanda Quick.

I've enjoyed many (if not all) of Amanda Quick's books - her female characters are always educated, intelligent and very capable for the time period her stories follow. Her male characters, who seem to admire women with these unusual feminine qualities - are themselves strong and supportive. This usually makes for a novel with not only romance, but intrigue, suspense and passion (excellent beach reading). The characters are too priggish and polite to eachother - even upon familiarity. Lavinia's character seems flat and peevish - her "heat" is not believable and for an intelligent woman - as written - seems stupidly unaware of the obvious - I'm not referring to her purposeful naivete. Tobias' character is more believable - he seems human, although he could use more depth. Hopefully the next one will be up to her usual par....

I have all of the Amanda Quick novels. I am one of the first in line to buy them. I look forward to each new release. I looked forward to this one. I read it in one afternoonand when I had finished - felt very let down.

I knew Quick was going for a series set in historic England. It could work. But she needs to develop the mysteries a bit more, add some tension - not just silly arguments, and make the characters more personable. I was getting tired of Lavinia's attitude, tired of March's dithering, and the secondary characters were mere puppets in this book. It was missing something. The things that Lavinia worried about seemed silly, the love scenes seemed silly not really passionate, and though we glimpsed the steel and the tenderness in March, overall he did not seem as appealing as other Quick heroes.

I wanted more from this read and did not find it. I guess I will re-read her earlier Regencies.

My book club accidentally shipped me "Don't Look Back." As it looked mildly interesting and I hadn't read Amanda Quick before, I kept it. Then I realized I needed to read "Slightly Shady" first. So I bought it and was truly disappointed. The characters, what I could make of them (with little written about their physical characteristics), were uninspiring. There was little emotional depth to the story. You hardly ever saw what the characters are thinking or feeling. I just could not get to know or even like Lavinia or Tobias. I did read both books, and by the end of "Don't Look Back" I was mildly amused by the dialogue. So I give 2 stars for good dialogue and great plotting. That's all these two books have going for them.

I love JAK in all her presentations, precisely because she does not do a lot of interior soul searching and psycho babble. Her dialogue carries the story (as it should do in any good writing) and if she has a slightly campy feel to it so much the better. I have just started to reread some of the Quick books and find that they have held up well since I first started reading them some 6 years ago. Scandal was a hoot, ditto Deception and Mystique, I am currently on Seduction, the first one she did in this genre. My faves had been Dangerous and Ravished but I will see what time does to these rankings. Quick also writing as JA Krentz, does the same plot every time but it taps into what I want and enjoy and makes me laugh and know the ending will be satisfying and complete. This book is a departure from her norm in that it carries over the same hero and heroine from a prior book (she did do this though in Dreams 1 & 2, Gifts of Fire and Gold and one other very early set and the famous Gwen Jones quartet (please reissue JAK whereever you are, oh Seattle of course)). Best.

This one just didn't appeal to me. It and its predecessor were ok reads, but they didn't grab me the way the earlier Amanda Quick novels did.

This and its predecessor have already departed my library. I recommend you check it out of the public library, unless this particular style appeals to you.