Customer Reviews

High Meadow

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

How to take a good basic plot and destroy it 1) add in a shrill, annoying heroine, 2) add a beta male who is too nice 3) add a too grown/mature 7 year old child 4) add no mystery and weak villian 5) throw in an obvious ending - mix together, gouge customer with price and voila! Don't get me wrong, I love her historicals, but maybe she should stay away from contemporary novels.

Joan Wolf has written some wonderful romances, but this isn't one of them. There are a lot of elements that could have been powerful and emotional - an unknown child, a mother's cancer, a kidnapping, the death of a best friend, the possible loss of a career - but except the cancer side story, all of the other elements are looked at impassionately and discarded in a few pages.

I actually found this book rather annoying because of Kate, the unbelievably clueless heroine, and the long conversations that have nothing to do with the story. This book seems to ramble on about nothing. Not one of Joan Wolf's best efforts.

This book is a rehash of Beloved Stranger, which she published in '84 (iirc). The names have been changed, but that's about the only thing. Ms. Wolf should go back to writing regencies, where she excels, and stop rewriting her old books.

I want to start by saying that i have loved Joan Wolf books until the last 3. it seems Ms wolf is in a bit of writer block.
This last book " High Meadow" is really a rehash of a few past books. The main caracters are all from past books and in general lack tridimensionality. I absolutely love Ms. Wolf Female Caracters, they are spunky, independant etc. here Kate is really nothing, Molly the same as for the Main male caracter we already met him in another short novel of Ms. Wolf about a rich Latin American Base Ball Player. I must say all the paragraphs about base ball are chinese to me. So on the whole I do not recommand this book.
I hope we will get to reall business soon.

This is only Joan Wolf's second book in the Contemporary Romance genre and she is definately getting the hang of it.

Story.... Beautiful woman raising her sister's orphaned son. Son's previously unknown Father discovers that he has a son and turn's up out of the blue demanding to be part of childs life. Father is famous baseball player. Beautiful woman hardworking, proud and resentful of sharing child. Will these two people find a way to come together that will give this child the family he desperately wants? Throw in a Grandmother who discovers she has major health problems to complicate things.

Ms. Wolf has taken a rather basic romance genre story premise and come up with an intelligent, well written, story about love, faith and personal triumph. While the romance is a subtle, sweet and passionate, the sex scenes are not written as a "how to" manual or a lesson in Anatomy 101 and I appreciate that.

But it is not the "average" romance in that every thing is always bright and cheery. Hard-hitting issues such as grief, loss and life-threatening illness are addressed realistically.

I give this book only a B. Joan Wolf has written a couple of books in the past that have knocked my socks off. My standards for her books are higher than for average romance authors. Otherwise I would have given it an A.

Well it looks like my impression of this book agrees with the majority of the reviewers. The ending just dropped off, no good finish at all. How romantic the way the hero says to the girl of his dreams "Shall we make love now?" I didn't think anyone was as innocent as Kate at age 14 let alone 27. This was one of the slowest and emptiest stories I have read for awhile. What was good about it? Nothing I'm afraid.

Joan Wolf is a wonderful writer. I have loved all her other books. I have trouble believing she wrote this one.
There is no chemistry between the protagonists, the heroine is an emotionally deficient nitwit, the plot has everything in it, including cancer and for good measure a kidnapping of a child for sexual exploitation which was a little sidebar .... The writing was stilted with a lot of unecessary meaningless detail. .... As it is, I couldn't finish it. ....

Normally I love Joan Wolf books, but this one was boring as heck! I can usually finish a book like hers in about 3 hours, but I'm still in the middle of it, because I've been taking my time for the last 2 weeks. To tell you the truth, I use it to unwind at the end of the day because I know it is sure to put me to sleep! The characters are cardboard, the dialogue stilted, the conflicts and plot nonexistent. I can't believe her publisher let this one go the press! Don't waste your money on this one, buy her regencies instead.

I don't mind if an author rehashes an old story, but only if it's good! I had to make myself finish this one. Both romances in the story were boring. The main female character is just plain stupid. She has no valid reason for her conflict with the hero.

I, too, wish Ms. Wolf would write some more regencies, but not if the story line is no better than this one.

This is the 2nd contemporary romance Joan Wolf has written. I liked it, but I don't think it was as well written or cohesive as her Regency romances. The plot wasn't as engaging and the characters weren't as detailed as her characters usually are. Perhaps Wolf's greatest strength is her simple language that allows her to tell the reader many things without seeming to get bogged down in detail. This allows her to bring to life her characters. I just don't think she was as successful with these characters as she has been in the past. Daniel and Kate seemed to be other characters she had done before rather than new and individual. With any one else, I would call this a very good book, but I expect the extraordinary from Joan Wolf because she usually delivers.
The plot revolves around Daniel, a pro baseball player, realizing he has a son who is being raised by an aunt, Kate. As Daniel attempts to become a part of his son's life, he also discovers he wants to become a part of Kate's life as well. This is a nice sweet story about love and hope that Wolf fans will like. But for a book you can love, check out her backlist!