Customer Reviews

Hurricane (MIRA)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

To get one thing straight, right up front - there is nothing really *wrong* with this book - the writing is good enough, the *main* characters are mostly developed OK (although all the women main characters are so neurotic that I just wanted to smack them), and the premise seemed like one that would provide plenty of suspense. But it didn't - provide suspense, that is. Honestly, I just didn't care. I can read a book of this length in about 5-6 hours, if properly motivated and, to give a bit of a comparison, I have spent over a MONTH trying to force my way through this one. I finally just gave up and said ENOUGH.

The basic idea is that Julie Minton and her daughter Randi have moved to Florida, down into the Keys, where Julie has opened up a center for girls who are "cutters" (that is, they cut themselves obsessively in order to help make themselves feel more in control of themselves and their lives), where she and her friend Kaylin spend a couple weeks with each group of girls to help them curb their impulses and turn them toward more positive actions. Kaylin is a former cutter, which turns up as a plot devise later on. Randi has a crush on Thad, who is the son of Zach Brockman - who, ironically enough, Julie had a bit of a crush on when she was younger, but upon which she was not allowed to act because her family was rich and Zach was "beneath" her. At any rate, Randi gets to ride with Thad on a Jet-Ski and they go missing. Right before a big-ol' hurricane is due to come up.

At this point we are hurriedly introduced to a dizzying array of characters who are mostly not developed enough for us to differentiate between them - or, who are developed by the use of clichés. To add to the confusion, Julie stumbles upon a couple murders, and finally a ransom note. We are left as befuddled as the characters - more so, since we have no idea who these people are! Were the kids kidnapped? If so, why? Were they witnesses to a drug deal? Is it to force Julie to sell out the ancestral home? Or were the kids just in an accident on the Jet-Ski and forced to hole up on one of the 10,000 Islands of the Keys? Or did they maybe just run away to New York or New Jersey? By this time, honestly, I didn't even care. The only reason I kept going as far as I did was simple stubbornness. Do yourself a favor - don't waste your time like I did.

I really enjoyed this book, to me it was not boring. Once I started it I
finished quickly and then started reading her others.
I have found though that lots of time books I read I then check to see
the rating on here and it sometimes amazes me how different people's
opinion can be.

When I read a book, I expect/hope to have characters that about whom I really care. While the plot had promise, it felt as though much of it was just thrown in without any intent to actually develop it. Many aspects of the plot and character development felt like an afterthought.

While this was, by far, NOT the worst book I have read, I wouldn't waste my time to read it again.

Ms. Harper's suspense thriller lived up to all expections of her usual writing style. As a native Floridian who has survived many hurricanes her descriptions were accurate and on point. The only thing I missed was a more vivid desciption of the surprises and horrors of the aftermath.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and would recommend it to any Floridian.

I have read the other negative reviews and find many of their comments baseless.

I love Karen Harper. She is a great author and I love her Amish stories. This book, however, was not very "thrilling". It had my attention at the beginning but soon started to crash. There were too many characters and it got confusing and it seemed to lull many times. I am looking forward to the next book-hope it is better than this one.

I would like all of the readers that gave this book a good review to come back to Earth for a second and listen. Not only was this book boring, but it was poorly written. Harper attempted to make Hurricane into a half romance novel, half thriller which ended up failing on both ends. In the story, Zach Brockman, the rugged and burly fishing boat captain, has to pair up with the rich and proper Julie Minton in order to collectively save their abducted kids before the storm erases any evidence of their whereabouts. At first they appear to be hindered by their past, but they eventually come together to achieve a common goal. Please. Not only was the sensual narration flaccid, but the action was as exciting as a NY Knicks game (for all the readers on this blog, the NY Knicks are a professional basketball team). Mommyof4boys, you said that you couldn't keep track of all the extra characters? I think there were a total of about 10 characters other than their kids, 8 of which they accused by the middle of the book - leaving only two to become the villains at the end. The plot was about as transparent as your brain. Harriet Klausner, I don't even want to get into the dramatic "final confrontation in the eye of the storm." All I can say is that it's a good thing the paraplegic was around to take out the villain since Zach Brockman, the ex-SEAL, laid helplessly unconscious downstairs after being easily neutralized.

I read the first 40 pages of this book in a Barnes and Noble on a cross-country trip to California this summer, when I had 20 minutes to kill. I refused to buy the book for $7.99 on principle, but it showed up at my door last week so I had to read it. I'll never be able to get those 6 hours of my life back.

Ms. Harper writes a fantastic suspense story. I was on the edge of my seat. There was tension of all kinds and yet nothing seemed out of place. I loved how clean it was and not bloody, gory, or full of sex. It was a nice change of pace and the characters were well detailed. I felt like I was in the midst of the book. I love reading the credits to see how much help they had and it showed how important she felt it was to seek out help to write an accurate story line.

Julie is a woman I can relate to with being a mom. She truly cared for her daughter even though it didn't always show. Running a resort for cutters kept her busy. She had help in her friend Kaylin to run the resort. Kaylin is tested by the emotions of Randi gone as well as helping the girls and not returning to her old ways of cutting to deal with the stress. Zach is a tough guy but even he is stressing out. He doubts finding the kids alive but won't stop looking. With his SEAL training, it may just be the one thing that would save the kids.

This book was very good! I was impressed with how well paced it was and with the diversity of characters. I would definitely read more of this author's work. I'm not sure what problems people might have with this writing style, but give it a try. I hope the rest of her work is just as good if not better. I am definitely happy with how it all played out.

I usually don't write reviews but I was looking over Karen's books to see when the next one is coming and saw the bad reviews on this book. The only reason I can see people not liking it is if they can't keep up with more than 2 characters at a time. It may not have been her best but I like the fact that she doesn't have the same storyline each book. I enjoyed it and the fact that it wasn't your typical "I am woman, hear me roar" type heroine. I think it was suppose to show more of the panic parents feel when the kids are in trouble than "villian meets soccer mom". Anyway, she's one of my favorites and I hated seeing this book being boo'd so much when it wasn't that bad.

The first one of her books I read was Inferno and I was riveted from the first page. This one took forever to get going and then it just dragged. We all knew what the inevitable conclusion was but it took forever to get there.

I didn't find the story boring, simply underdeveloped. Lots of interesting potential, but none of it followed through. This is one of those stories where the author throws everything at you, including a hurricane. This is the story of a single mom with a daughter and a single father with a son, whose kids go off together and are missing, they are in fact kidnapped. The story is supposed to be of the parents search for their missing children. And while the search becomes intense so does the attraction between this mom and dad. This all occurs during the expectation of a hurricane and during the hurricane itself. In the mist of this people are committing murders all for the sake of the preservation of sharks. Yep, didn't really make sense to me either. If all of that is not enough, the heroine runs a camp for girls who cut themselves. And the counselor she leaves in charge of the girls, while she's off finding dead bodies and looking for her daughter, is also a cutter. Who during the hurricane can't take the pressure, blames herself for everything and of course reverts back to cutting herself with a knife.

Most of the characters in this book were unsympathetic. The heroine comes off as really annoying, but I did like the hero Zack. The best characters were thier son and daughter, possibly because you don't see much of them in the story and they are the innocent victims here and of course the hurricane. Frankly,the environmentalist in the story are protrayed as crazy fanatics, willing to kill anyone for the sake of sharks. The girls who cut themselves likewise fare no better. They come off as just too self-centered, this is a serious issue and the book kind of left it up in the air. Like it was thrown in as mere seasoning for the storyline, instead of having any real significance for driving the story. This could just as easily have been girls who attended a summer camp for smokers, it had about the same impact to the story.