Customer Reviews

Man With A Past

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I purchased this book because I am familiar with the author and usually enjoy her books. A big mistake this time. The plot is thin, the characters are unappealing, and the relationship between them is unhealthy. The male is portrayed as obsessed with the female lead. I am a social worker by profession and I read romance novels for relief and to depressurize from my job. I do not want to read about relationships that are abusive. Frankly, I would be frightened of a man that wanted as much control over my life as this "hero" wanted with his "heroine". I understand that this book is actually a book first published in the 1980s. Ms. Kranz is capable of writing entertaining books and she does so under several pen names. She should forget trying to make a few more bucks on her old books and write some new ones. If she continues to reissue older books with plots and characters similar to "Man With A Past" she may find that her name will no longer draw readers like myself.

I'm relieved to find so many that have read this book agree with me that this book was BAD! Though I wouldn't have said it was because of the date this book was written, even in the 80's I would not have liked this book. The "hero" was a chauvanistic brute. We try to teach our young people that a girl can say no at any time. This guy didn't believe it pertained to him and could do anything he wanted. He treated the "heroine" like she was a child and that women in general had no brains and shouldn't be treated as such. Don't waste your money on this book. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I kept reading it to see if it would get any better; it didn't.

I enjoy Miss Krentz's work but found this book much to dated. The heroine was not conflicted but spineless and helpless in the face of the prescence of the alpha male. Although she considered herself assertive, she always seemed to be following orders even though she didn't feel that they were necessarily in her best interest.

The initial love scene was too dated (i.e. the woman wants to say no but is so overcome by the attraction that she loses all sense of self -- actually common sense, I mean)and left a bad taste. I barely finished the book and next time probably won't read anymore of Miss Krentz' earlier work. I should have known, as I had a similar response to Ghost of A Chance.

I couldn't even finish this book and I have most of the Krentz books. The heroine was a wimpy fool and the hero wasn't any sort of a hero. He was just abusive. Sheesh!

I ran into this same problem with the re-issues of Krentz under the Stephanie James name. Foolishly, I bough the first 6 because of Krentz's reputation. Won't be buying any more of those old issues!

But it's nice to see how well she's risen above those earlier books, isn't it?

When a person has been reading romances for a while, it becomes easy for her to tell approximately when a book has been written--early eighties, late eighties, early nineties, etc... Each era has its own particular "tells" along the path of female empowerment and sexual liberation. In spite of the fact that we are led to believe the heroine here is not a virgin, this book is definitely early eighties, and clearly should have been left there.

If you haven't figured it out already, anything with the MIRA star logo on it was probably originally published a while ago. MIRA has taken to re-issuing early works by such popular authors as Stephanie Laurens, Linda Howard and Jayne Ann Krentz. Although these authors produce wonderful work today, their first novels weren't necessarily as stellar. These books are definitely dated, and exemplify what publishers thought women wanted to read at the time. Most readers will react with a resounding "YUCK!!!" if they come across these stories today (Linda Howard's All That Glitters is a fine example of this).

Here, Kelsey Murdock is no dewy-eyed ingenue, but a 28 year-old independent woman. Nonetheless, Cole Stockton expects her to give up her job so he can support her, because he can't stand her not being there when he calls to check up on her. This is typical of early eighties romances, where the formula is that the man completely takes over the woman's life and, apart from shedding a few tears, she inexplicably and illogically decides she has no other choice but to go along with it. All's well that ends well when she finally realizes she's in love with him. The hero decides toward the end of the novel that he would like to keep the heroine, and that's the end of that.

In Man With A Past, Cole doesn't want to tell Kelsey anything about his past, or talk about the future. When she sees that this relationship can go nowhere and tries to break up with him, he forces her to have sex with him in a frighteningly pre-political correctness kind of way. Of course, after this Kelsey doesn't cut off his privates or even report him to the local authorities, as one would today. Moreover, she doesn't even get a temporary restraining order when he calls her afterwards and says things like "I made you mine, and there's no going back to a time when you didn't belong to me." In 2002, that's not sexy, just creepy.

Kelsey avoids Cole until she goes on vacation. She takes a cruise, during which she is supposed to deliver an attache case to a reclusive co-worker. While she is suffering a bout of sea-sickness, Cole decides to steal the highly confidential material she is carrying, and expects Kelsey not to question his actions and trust him blindly. She gets understandably indignant, but then doesn't follow through like a logical person and call the ship authorities. Instead she sticks around for more of his high-handedness, even when he says things like "Nothing stands between us but your stubborn female curiosity and arrogance." There is no way a premise like that would fly today. In 2002, the hero's interfering with--and essentially taking over-- the heroine's job could only be called boneheaded; him for doing it, and her for allowing him to get away with it.

In accordance with the standard formula, toward the end of the book Cole decides to change the rules of the relationship with no explanation to Kelsey: "Once inside the walls, you can't get back out...I could never let you go free." Kelsey falls in love with this overbearing neanderthal in spite of everything, and without him having to change his demeaning ways an iota or apologize even once. She admits she loves him, and only then does he deign to tell her very briefly about his past. The whole thing nicely sets the stage for the beginnings of a singularly abusive marriage.

Bottom line, this book is extremely condescending and border-line frightening. But maybe it could be used in a compare/contrast exercise in women's studies classes...

This is the last "old" Jayne Ann Krentz that I buy!Written in 1985, her characters are so stereotypically cast that Icould barely stand it. There is no complexity and there is nobackbone. The age of the meely mouth woman who plays at working andis almost raped by a man that she then professes to love - is over. Ilove Jayne's newer novels, her quirky repetoire and loveablecharacters but these old Harlequin/Silouette titles need to be foundonly in the used book store, not sold for twice the original askingprice just because the author has finally found her voice. I am nowforewarned to look inside the book and check the original date ofpublishing - just to protect myself from such mindless dribble.Straight out of a Bond movie - "Oh, James!" Shudder.

JAK's 1985 release does not hold up well. Her writing was sharp and she brought forth vivid characters, but this chest thumping alpha male me-Tarzan-you-Jane against her wishy-washy
female just will not please readers of today.

However, if you are a JAK fan and collecting all her stuff, you will want to add this one. Not a bad read, but very dated.

Worse they soak you with the higher price!! They should have released this like they did the low cost Stephanie James ones. You don't feel so bad when they give it a nice price, but this was really rotten to charge NEW BIG book prices for a very dated series romance from the mid 80's!!

Originally published in 1985, the plot of this book is somewhat dated to the romance books that we are used to for today. There are several things that somehow manage to rankle your chain while you are reading, but if you are a lover of Jayne Ann Krentz, you will clearly see how her books have evolved throughout the years and the last decades.

From the backcover -- She'd fought him every step of the way. and he'd won every battle... Cole Stockton had a will of steel and a raw determination to go after what he wanted - including Kelsey Murdock. he'd invaded her life, assaulting her with his sensuality, tempting her to be reckless. She sensed something dangerous about the man - in the secrets he refused to share, the past that still haunted him, the coiled tension that denied intimacy. For Cole, the past was a closed door. For Kelsey, that meant too many question and no answers - and the best reason to walk away, before it was too late. But when a simple business trip turns into a dangerous survival game, she is plunged into a world Cole knows all too well. Now Kelsey must trust he knows it well enough to keep them both alive.

To start with, the start of the book left something to be desired. Just the way that we were introduced to the characters and the heroine's 'fear' of the hero just leaves your head reeling. The intimacy scene and how it came to be about was high handed. I wouldn't call it straight rape since the heroine herself did not seem to mind what was transpiring. The hero's attitude as an alpha male that needs to be followed through is clearly outdated, but works well with the time that this book was written and the preferences of the audience for those times. It does not excuse the way that we are introduced to the male lead as it seems that he is going to rape the heroine and we have only just left the first chapter. I quickly catched onto how the author was panning this out, so I just took it page by page.

Man with a Past is a book at this age and time, that will seem passable at best. If you are not a fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, a true fan that is not only attracted to her new books like Falling Awake, and Truth of Dare, but has also read other of her earlier works and noted the difference, then I will not recommend this story to you. I love this author, and I have read many of her books in her other names, but if you aren't familiar with how her style has changed, then don't bother buying this. Look it up in the local library before actually casting stones on this book, it is not her best, but it is a book that had its own place two decades ago.

I give it a four stars because it kept me going. I never stopped reading. I kept wondering how the relationship that had started through such rocky circumstances could evolve into something that would justify both of the characters coming together in the end. In the end, IT DID NOT DISSAPOINT.

I picked this one up in a used book store last year. I never got past the first two or three chapters before I threw it away (actually threw it away, something I have done only three or four times with the thousands of books I've read) so no one else would be subjected to it. Reading the full plot description provided by another reader makes me glad I did. This kind of controlling behavior has all the hallmarks we now look for in the abusive male. There is NOTHING romantic or sexy about any of it. Avoid this one like the plague.

I read anything written by Krentz. I was very disappointed with this book. The couple were constantly arguing, and the man was a chauvanist. He was an overbearing character from page one. I would not recommend this book to any of her fans.