Customer Reviews

Just Like a Man

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

 

 

I like Elizabeth Bevarly's books, I really do. They are very witty and have interesting characters. It was hard to decide how many stars to give this book because it has two separate stories in it, only connected by the most tenuous of threads.

First, you have the story of Hannah and Michael, which I would give 3 stars. I liked the characters and their emotional connection, but the plot was pretty far-fetched and it seemed Ms. Bevarly couldn't come up with an idea about why the villian of the piece was a threat. Also, this story had an absolutely flat ending with a non-resolving resolution.

The story of Selby and Thomas was more enjoyable with an actual end to their story. They each found themselves to be better than they had realized. Thankfully, no villains were involved in this story that had a decent romance plot line and an emotionally satifying ending.

Many novels with parallel plot lines at least have some plot-advancing interactions among the various protagonists. This one has only the sparsest of connections.

Having read it, I didn't feel like my money or my time had been wasted. I got some belly laughs out of it and enjoyed all the protagonists, but the potential buyer may want to take all of the above into account when deciding how to spend his/her gift cards/money/gift certificates.

Well, I for one really enjoyed Bevarly's wacky humor in this book. (It's my first time reading her work.) The repetitions were intended as humor, and I found them funny. In fact, only the first one, which was used more often, got old. Yes, many of the sentences start with "and," "but," etc. People do not think in complete sentences, and much of what is written is the workings of the minds of one of the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed both romances in this book; the characters were very well developed, and their relationships were emotionally compelling, romantic, and steamy.

The suspense could have been equally good, and I thought Bevarly would tie everything together at the end. Unfortunately, she did not. The two romances barely tied together, and the spy plot was left dangling with no resolution. That was bad, very bad. She could so easily have connected the spy plot to Pax's computer business and tied everything together. Alas!

So, great on romance, and I thought it was very funny, but the lack of resolution in the spy sub-plot and the failure to tie the two romances together loses some points. Come to think of it, Bevarly doesn't really put the finishing touches on the second roance either. I've set the stars at 4 because the rating could use the boost, but it's really about a 3 to 3.5.

This story was set up to be a romance with a suspense twist, but the suspense part is left hanging. There were two parallel stories told of two budding relationships, but I never felt like the suspense part was developed. Without the promise of a thrilling climax to the suspense aspect, the stories could have stood on their own without the reader feeling like the resolution was left hanging.

This also took me over a week to read which means it was not very compelling. All in all it was a below average read.

I wish I had read these reviews before I bought the book! I only got through the first chapter! Luckily I bought it at my LBS(local book store) and don't have to pay S&H to return it.

Right away it bugged me when in the prologue, the main character agrees to take his son "on assignment" with him to help on his highly dangereous, super secret, spy mission. This is just so UNBELIEVABLE on so many levels! Then his son finds out who he is and appearantly everything he has done over the past few years, because he hacked into his dad's home computer. Now forget that this kid is 9 years old - its a stretch but plausibloe; what kind of crappy spy keeps all his 'spy files' on his home computer where his son can find them? I don't much care for spy motivated plots in romances, but if you are going to do it then do it well, not slip shod.

Lastly, the language is just too cutesy and silly. The other main character (Hannah) describes herself, to herself, as "the overworked, overextended, overdressed, but egregiously underpaid -not that she was bitter or anything - director of a tony private school." While this was cutesy but amusing the first time, by the fourth time this exact phrasing was used within the first 20 pages, I had moved from irritated to disgusted.

It is possible that the book got better - I only made it to page 29(that is why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1) - but I doubt it. The son was cute, but not worth the read. Save your $6. Try anything by Jennifer Crusie or Flirting With Danger by Suzanne Enoch; funny, clever and engaging light, contemparary romances.

Toney private school principal Hannah Frost finds herself attracted to the father of her newest little troublemaker. Alex Sawyer likes to tell tales about his father being a secret agent that can hack into anything from large banks to Toys R Us (though it was Alex that hacked into the latter). Father Michael assures Hannah that he will have Alex stop with the stories, but he too is smitten with the teacher. What she does not realize is that Michael was pulled out of retirement as a secret agent for OPUS, and his assignment is to locate and stop rogue OPUS agent Adrian Padgett (aka "Sorcerer). Adrian is in Indiana masquerading as an executive on the board of directors of the school. OPUS thinks he might be out to harm the President who will be in town for a fundraiser. Michael's relationship with Hannah soon blows his cover and she's forced to be part of the sting. As the two try to close in on the Sorcerer, their attraction blossoms into love.

A secondary plot involving Selby, a teacher at the school and Thomas, the CEO of Adrian's company is tossed into the mix and seems out of place. Selby teaches night classes for people who want to get their diplomas; Thomas has his GED but promised his grandma that he would get his diploma while she was still alive (despite having a PhD and Masters...). This barely developed storyline shifts focus from the primary one and really adds little value.

This is the first in the OPUS agent novels, and is followed by "You've Got Male" and "Express Male". With too much time spent on a subplot that goes nowhere, the suspense is non-existent and readers are left without a conclusion, forced to scratch their heads and say "huh, is that it?" It's just an average read.

Skip this book. The author wrote two seperate stories and combined them with no reasonable connection.

I would recommend this book. The humor often seemed forced and repetitive, but overall it was a cute story with fun characters. The only thing that I had trouble with was the subplot with the characters of Shelby and Thomas - how exactly did they fit with the overall storyline? It didn't gel.

I am so disappointed after reading less than 50 pages of a book that includes my hometown, Indianapolis. I was excited because our city does not hit the romance spotlight often, if at all. The repeating of thoughts by Hannah is what annoyed me most and would have rated Ms. Bevarly just one star, but she earned one more by mentioning Broad Ripple, the most popular (well-earned) neighborhood in the city, and that means she at least did a little homework. I buy a lot of books at flea markets and yard sales for little or no money, but I am sorry to say, if I had only paid fifty cents for this, it would still have been a major disappointment.

I'm not accustomed to reading romance novels, but I wanted something to read on vacation and this was a book my wife had brought with us. Though I am no expert, I would guess what separates this book from others in the genre is the fact that there were two romances progressing in parallel, the first between Hannah and Michael and the second between Selby and Thomas, two characters who were only loosely tied to the first couple.

(Spoiler Alert)
I very much enjoyed the author's writing voice and sense of humor. Had she wound it into a great plot I would have given her 5 stars, but I'm going with 3 because I was disappointed in the story. I kept waiting for these two couples to tie together in some surprising way. Unfortunately the two story lines remained separate until the end. A further lack of resolution was experienced in the actions of the antagonist, Adrian, who claims to have something evil planned that's far bigger than Michael can imagine. We never find out what that "something" is. In fact, Adrian runs off without ever giving us the confrontation the author has promised throughout the story.

Michael "Raptor" Sawyer tells his former boss that he no longer worked for OPUS as he has a nine years old son to raise and parent association meetings to attend. His superior informs Michael that you work for OPUS for life. Furthermore he is needed to deal with the Sorcerer, currently behaving as a model businessman in Indianapolis, but OPUS knows how dangerous this man is.

Michael takes Alex with him on his assignment as he has no choice. He enrolls his son in Emerson Academy, but rather quickly the precocious Alex is in trouble with stern headmistress Hannah Frost who lives up to her last name. Hannah calls in Michael to discuss his son's behavior and to her chagrin finds she is attracted to him although he does not fit her controlled lifestyle. Still as Michael works as an undercover secret agent, he and Hannah fall in love, but between the impacts on his son, the danger caused by the Sorcerer, and her stubbornness, the relationship between the Raptor and the educator appears doomed.

Though Hannah lives up to her surname for much of the first half of the novel, readers will accept her cold professional approach as an educational administrator and manager, but feel a bit disjointed that she behaves the same way in her personal life even as this rings true. Michael and Alex thaw her. The suspense adds tension as Michael finds he has two people to protect from his enemy and willingly risks all to keep them safe. Fans will enjoy this taut romantic suspense thriller starring three fine protagonists.

Harriet Klausner