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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT, September 29, 2009
This review is from: Love You to Death (Mass Market Paperback)
The story opens as reporter, Elise McBride, has just flown home from Hong Kong to look for her sister. Ashley hasn't been heard from in several days, so Elise knows something has to have happened to her... something very serious. Almost immediately after arriving at her sister's house, she meets Ashley's next door neighbor and former cop, Trent Brady. Elise is satisfied that her sister has met with foul play and sits out to prove it, not heeding the dire warnings of Trent.
Elise convinces Trent to help her look for Ashley, and they soon discover they are searching for a crazed serial killer who mutilates the bodies of his victims for his own deviant purposes. Eventually, the gorgeous Elise becomes the killer's ideal candidate, as he sets her up for murder. Can Trent save her from a gruesome death? Will they find Ashley alive?
The author delicately spins suspense and drama, touching on a bit of horror here and there, as the books forges on to it's dramatic climax. Building layer upon layer, character upon character, this well-developed story steadily unfolds, holding the reader spellbound with anticipation. Although, gory in some parts, it is fast moving, romantic, steamy, and very exciting.
I wish I could give it more than 5 stars.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Solid effort, October 21, 2009
This review is from: Love You to Death (Mass Market Paperback)
Overall, I enjoyed this new offering of Ms. Butchers. She writes solid, if not terribly original, romantic suspense. Love You to Death was creepier than her Delta force books because the reader is allowed inside the mind of a sick serial killer. Even though I am a big fan of the mystery/suspense genre, I don't want to be inside the mind of a serial killer, so it lessened the book's enjoyment for me.
Other than that, I have two quibbles with the book. First, Ms. Butcher falls into the common mistake romance writers make of too many repetitive internal monologues by the characters. We "hear" Trent tell himself over and over how he messed up everyone's life, how he doesn't deserve to be happy, how he can't be trusted not to mess up again, etc. And we also repeatedly "hear" him decide he has to take charge of Elise, even though early on the reader knows she won't allow it. We also get to "hear" over and over how Elise thinks it's her fault that Ashley is in this mess, and it's Elise's responsibility to get her out, even if it means doing stupid and dangerous things. Elise's constant determination to treat Ashley like a child is irritating. After a while, these paragraphs of repetitive internal monologues start to feel like padding.
Secondly, most of the small conflicts in the book, at least in the early chapters, involve Elise and Trent having basically the same argument multiple time. "You are not!" "Yes I am!" "I won't let you!" "You're not the boss of me!" That got old, too.
Lest it sound like I didn't enjoy the book, I need to add that I read the book in less than a day because the story drew me in and I thoroughly enjoyed the romance, which I thought was very well developed and believable. I fully intend to read the next book Ms. Butcher writes. She has published five books so far, and though they may not be the very best of their genres, they all have a very consistent overall quality. Ms. Butcher can be depended on to deliver an interesting story, a solid romance, and well-written love scenes. That's much more than some authors, and enough to put her on my auto-buy list.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What pretty hands you have..., September 29, 2009
This review is from: Love You to Death (Mass Market Paperback)
Ashley McBride is extremely talented. She's an artist, that at any moment will stop what she is doing to paint or draw a picture. She's sweet, bubbly, and trusting. She's also a complete scatterbrains, and now that she's gone missing, her big sister Elise is starting to worry.
Ashley always calls Elisa after going out on Friday nights to give her all the juicy details of her evening. This time, she doesn't call, and Elise is sick with worry. She tries calling Ashley multiple times, only to go to her voicemail, which is entirely unlike Ashley. She's convinced that her baby sister is in trouble, and she will stop at nothing to get her back.
Trent Brady lives across the street from Ashley. He likes the young girl, enough to do small chores around her house for her, and make sure no one tries to hurt her. When he notices someone trying to break into her house, his cop instincts kick in, even though he's been off the force for over two years. When the perpetrator turns out to be Ashley's big sister Elise, sick with worry over her sister, Trent makes it his duty to help her.
When I first started reading this book, it was difficult for me to get into. It seemed like your regular romantic suspense, and I was just waiting for something interesting to happen. I honestly can say that I didn't start to really enjoy this book until the author let us inside of both the killer and his victims heads. That was when I realised I had to stick around until the end.
Shannon K. Butcher's characters are very well rounded, and I felt a very real connection to some of them. I actually cringed a few times when reading the thoughts of the killer, and I wanted to wring his neck myself for the horrible things he was capable of. I was also on the fence about Elise, because while she is a strong character willing to do anything for the love of a sibling, she doesn't think about whether or not she will live through her own decisions to see her sister home safely.
As for the romance in this novel, it was definitely there. It started out slow, and slowly worked its way up. It was an intense romance, while still being appropriate for the situation they were both dealing with. I have a very vivid imagination, and the scenes, whether romantic or not, were very easily pictured in my mind. I will most definitely read more novels by Shannon K. Butcher in the future. I'd like to thank Anna Balasi of Hatchette books for sending me an ARC to review, she is always a pleasure to work with!
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