Holly [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Jude Deveraux (Author), Jennifer Wiltsie (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2003

Jude Deveraux, the dazzling New York Times bestselling author of Wild Orchids delivers a passionate yuletide tale sure to become a classic for every holiday season.

Hollander "Holly" Latham can't believe her good fortune. After endless calls, letters, emails, and promises, she's finally persuaded her parents to buy Spring Hill Plantation just outside beautiful, historic Edenton in eastern North Carolina -- and strategically located near Belle Chere, the purest, most untouched plantation site in America.

At the tender age of thirteen, Holly fell in love with Lorrie Beaumont, who inherited the Revolutionary-period estate when his heiress mother died during childbirth. Though more than a decade has passed since Holly last locked eyes with her childhood love, the passion she felt in her young heart has never come close to extinguishing -- that is, until charming, ruggedly handsome Nick Taggert unexpectedly waltzes into her life and treats her to an unforgettable weekend of laughter and intense passion.

Will Holly be seduced by Lorrie's wealth and privilege, or will she choose the simple gift of love that Nick has offered her? The answer is unveiled on a starry Christmas night, when passion, hate, and greed collide to reveal bitter truths that will forever change the course of Holly's charmed life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Deveraux's touch is gold..."

-- Publishers Weekly --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jude Deveraux is the author of 31 New York Times bestsellers, including Wild Orchids, Forever and Always, Forever..., The Mulberry Tree, The Summerhouse and Temptation. To date there are more than forty five million copies of her books in print. Ms. Deveraux lives in North Carolina with her six-year-old son, Sam.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743533496
• ISBN-13: 978-0743533492
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,808,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jude Deveraux was once a fifth-grade teacher who loved to read. When her imagination began to be filled with her own stories to tell, her career as a writer began. Jude's novels have been set in both contemporary and historical periods. Her strong, lyrical writing style and ability to write stories with memorable characters, rich detail, and believable dialogue has garnered her many devoted readers.

Jude has had over thirty books on the New York Times bestsellers list, has over 60 million copies in print, and has been translated into 18 languages. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading murder mysteries, working in her garden, and in boxing class she likes to show much younger males that she can throw a mean right cross.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars If this wasn't a Jude Deveraux book..., November 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Holly (Deveraux, Jude) (Hardcover)

I would have thrown it across the room! Really.

Stupid characters in books annoy me - and Holly really takes the cake. Supposedly she's a "prude" but actions speak louder than words:

1. Falls into a pit and strips down to her panties to attempt to make a rope to get out.
2. Has sex with a stranger approx. less than one hour after meeting. Within approx four hours has sex another three times with same stranger who doesn't learn her first name until after she leaves.
3. This same stranger finagles a job at her Dad's house, as a gardner, to get closer to her - which to me would yell "stalker" but to her it just says "Run out into the yard and have sex against a fountain."
4. Is in the attic of a house that doesn't belong to her, going through someone else's papers, and decides to disrobe down to her underwear because she's hot.

Okay, I've just got to stop there otherwise I could just go on until I ran out of the maximum word space. But you get the idea. She's an idiot and just a bit of a tramp.

I love Jude Deveraux. I've read all her books. The amount of sex in them has never bothered me before but this is really going overboard. I was literally skipping pages and *still* coming to sex scenes! Honestly, I couldn't tell you what the story was about because it was basically just two people having a lot of sex.

(...) if the story doesn't stand up without all the sex, perhaps it's not that good of a story to begin with.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Exactly Brimming with Yuletide Cheer, December 23, 2003

By 

Kelly A. fuller "certified book nut" (Pennsville, New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Holly (Deveraux, Jude) (Hardcover)

Again, I have been dupped. I bought this book in hopes of an uplifting Christmas themed story. Well, Bah-Humbug! This one just didn't do it for me. I love Jude Deveraux's work and had high hopes for this one. Unfortunatly, it let me down. Maybe it's me, maybe the stress of the season leaves me unable to fully enjoy a book, but I just couldn't "get into" this one. The story feels rushed, too much too soon, especially where sex scenes are concerned. Don't get me wrong, I am all for a good sexy read, but I was looking for a more sweet type of love for a holiday book. The cover felt slightly decieving to me as well. It looked as if it was set in another time period. If someone who had just picked it up for that reason, they would be disappointed. The title character, Holly herself, just wasn't all that likeable either. She wanted to marry a man for his house. Nick was decietful and seemed to have alot of extra time on his hands. I had a hard time figuring out why he was pretending to be who he was. All in all, I just didn't understand this book. I wanted something with a little redeeming quality to it. Check out Jude Deveraux's other works though, they are fantastic.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not her best, November 28, 2003

By 

penelop (NY,NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holly (Deveraux, Jude) (Hardcover)

I have been a fan of her novels for over 10 years. I think they are usually warm and funny and extremely well written. This book was not. It lingered on sex scenes and rushed through the plot. The usual family element that makes her novels so wonderful, revisiting old characters and just spending time with the Mongomery-Taggert family was missing in this book. Also the major events of the novel happened so quickly taking up a paragraph or two while the sex scenes go on for several pages. Just not what I would expect from a Jude D. novel