The Driven Snowe (Blaze S.) [Import] [Paperback]

CATHY YARDLEY (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: HARLEQUIN MILLS BOON; First Edition edition (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0263828948
• ISBN-13: 978-0263828948
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

More About the Author

A few random facts about me:

I am a fiction addict.

I love J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts, Jim Butcher, J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, Stephen King, Jennifer Crusie, Marian Keyes, J.K. Rowling, and a slew of other authors.

I have been known to stay up all night to finish a new novel. I don't so much read as devour.

I am an out of the closet foodie.

People who follow me on Facebook can attest: I am a foodie-blog whore. Love Smitten Kitchen. Adore Pioneer Woman Cooks. Bake my own bread on a weekly basis (because the recipe is so frickin' easy, a chimp could do it -- and it tastes phenomenal. I am a walking infomercial for this bread. ) Total Top Chef freak.

I am a geekgirl.

I love the San Diego Comic-con, or "The Con" as they call it.

I was part of the SCA -- The Society for Creative Anachronism -- and briefly sponsored my own mini army. I learned to speak some Japanese from anime.

I have a near encyclopedic knowledge of character actors and obscure movies. I have been called to settle bar bets.

I have a more-flirtatious-than-appropriate relationship with Excel spreadsheets. When I used to work at a day job, if I wore lipstick they assumed I was going on an interview. To this day, an entire marketing department lives in fear of my memory.

I love being an author.

Love writing. Love promoting. Love everything about it. And I love hearing from readers. Email me, anytime, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended sensual romance, November 15, 2001

By 

Escape to Romance Reviews (www.escapetoromance.com/reviews/) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Driven Snowe (Harlequin Blaze) (Paperback)

Angela Snowe is a twenty-nine year old librarian, and, yes, she's a virgin. She also thinks she might have breast cancer. The scare wakes her to the fact that she's been missing out on life. So out she goes to find her "sure thing."

Enter Josh Montgomery, local corporate bigwig and the 'Casanova of Manzanita'. He generously agrees to help her with her little problem and soon he can't get enough! He convinces Angela to try a short-term affair with an option to renew after six months, thinking that's plenty of time to get her out of his head.

Josh is a little heavy handed and Angela's a tad too independent. How in the world are these crazy kids going to get together? Don't worry, it's a romance, so you know it will all come out in the end. Along the way though, be prepared for some nail-biting tension and some very steamy sex scenes. Angela tells Josh at one point that she may not have any experience, but she does read a lot. My guess is that she's been reading some of Cathy Yardley's unpublished work. I can't wait until I get to read it, too!

Yardley's writing style is very lively: the characters are well fleshed-out and engaging. However, there was a little too much emphasis on the main characters for me, even in a series book. Josh's best friend, Adam, provides great material for a follow-up book with his cavalier attitude and bleeding heart interior. Angela's friends and coworkers are fun characters who hint at their own tantalizing stories.

Josh never really explains his reasons for being wary of a relationship. Angela, on the other hand, has some compelling reasons to avoid a casual relationship. Her mother married her father after only a few days and he left them when Angela was a young child. Growing up, she had to watch her mother work herself to the bone to provide for them. Angela is absolutely determined to not let history repeat itself. Once she gets involved with Josh, she finds it difficult to keep her emotional distance and fears she is headed down the same road as her mother.

Interestingly, Josh and Angela are in positions of role reversal. Yardley makes a point of allowing the reader to visit Josh and Angela in their heads, providing wonderful insight into the characters' psyches. Josh is worried about making things romantic and perfect. For example, he cannot wait to take Angela home to meet his parents. Angela, on the other hand, just wants to get in his pants! On the night of their "first date", Angela shows up at Josh's house, ready to jump his bones. Instead, Josh hurries her out the door and into a play performance. Not exactly what Angela had envisioned!

THE DRIVEN SNOWE is full of moments like these, snapshots of a fully realized romantic journey along with some spectacular sex. I would not hesitate to recommend THE DRIVEN SNOWE to anyone looking for their own "sure thing!"

--Reviewed by Lisa Shininger for Escape to Romance Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous! Best of Blaze, November 27, 2001

By 

Tanya V. "Bookwyrm" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Driven Snowe (Harlequin Blaze) (Paperback)

Every Harlequin line has the challenge of living up to the primary focus of the line (suspense in Intrigue, humor in Duets, etc.) while still managing a well-developed romance and believable, well-rounded characters. The challenge of Blaze is to balance erotic sensuality with likeable characters and a plausible romance. "The Driven Snowe" by Cathy Yardley is one of the best Blaze offerings I've read.

The romance between Angela and Josh is incredibly well-developed and credible, and it evolves at a reasonable, adult pace. While I enjoy "everything's all happy in Love Land even though the characters have only known one another a week" romances, I really appreciated that Yardley gave Angela and Josh's relationship the time to mature.

Even more, I appreciated that the barriers to their happiness were credible ones, based not on misunderstanding or jumping to conclusions or any of the myriad of reasons that we see in romance novels, but on real emotions and defense mechanisms.

The only weakness I see in "Snowe" is that the love scenes, while erotic, don't really do anything to separate "Snowe" out from the crowd. Unlike another reviewer, I didn't see Josh's fear of commitment and need to control the situation as requiring an explanation. To me, they were simply normal human reactions to falling in love.

I read and enjoyed Yardley's last offering, the Duets book "The Cinderella Solution," but "Snowe" is definitely a step up in Yardley's evolution as a writer. I am, quite frankly, staggered that this is her second published novel.

I truly recommend this to anyone looking for a well-developed romance. Enjoy!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read by a great new writer!, August 25, 2002

By 

K. Parry (Olathe, KS, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Driven Snowe (Harlequin Blaze) (Paperback)

As a relatively new reader of romance novels, I typically stick with what I know- I usually buy books by Linda Howard, since I know for the most part that I won't be disappointed (especially since the few times I've deviated from her books, I've been disappointed so far). But Cathy Yardley is an exception. "The Driven Snowe," begins with a fairly far-fetched plot. Mousy librarian Angela Snowe is tired of being a virgin, so she meets up with playboy Josh Montgomery (whose reputation she learned about in high school). Surprise, surprise, Angela turns out to be a little sex kitten beneath the mousy appearance, and Josh is smitten.
But "The Driven Snowe" goes on to develop the characters much further. The obstacles keeping them from being together are realistic, and their lives are realistically complicated. Of course, this being a romance novel, they wind up together in the end, but the development of the book is not formulaic. I found myself rooting for them, even though I knew they would be together in the end.
If you enjoy your romance highly steamy, this is well worth the read!