Customer Reviews

Night of the Cotillion

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This book left me lost with way too many unanswered questions. I really didn't think Jarod seemed too cruel, but we never did get his thoughts just Amanda's perceptions and those can always be slanted. I felt like Jarod was straightforward to Amanda. Basically letting her know what he wanted. Their relationship didn't really seem well developed. Sure there was a lot of detail leading up to the whole dance and a lot of the description of the area, but not enough for the love story to develop. They really didn't seem to interact with one another enough. Amanda believed that she loved Jarod, but why did she love him? Amanda spent a lot of time pushing Jarod away and he continued to pursue her. He told her that he always gets what he wants and he wanted her. So he managed to basically get her by helping her family financially and she had to marry him to reciprocate. She felt like she was bought and he never told her otherwise. He just said that she shouldn't undervalue the merchandise. She wanted everything written down and then one day he showed up with an attorney that did just that and they needed her signature. She never signed the document and he never asked about it again. She gets sick and he seems very concerned. He brings a doctor to her bedroom and she has to tell him that she is pregnant and he wants to know why she didn't tell him sooner. She didn't know how he would react as he did say before that there wouldn't be any children born of their union. No reasons were given for this. No explanations for Jarod's aloofness are ever really explained other than Amanda compares his upbringing to Tobe's but really that seems a bit lazy on the author's part and unfair to Jarod's character.
What are all these frequent business trips about? I thought he had relocated but he seems to go away a lot and there aren't any explanations. Then we get this mysterious phrase that Amanda thinks: "it had occurred to her that he was seeing someone else - how many business trips could a guy take? - and she guessed by the look he gave her that she was right." There is never a confirmation of this nor is there a denial. Nothing, the reader is left wondering. Given the aspects of Amanda's character I find it hard to believe that she would stand for Jarod running around on her and yet she doesn't say anything to him. I wanted to know if Jarod was seeing someone else, what he was doing on these trips, what he felt for Amanda, how he felt about anything, but none of these things were answered. Jarod never opened up, not once. He seemed more cardboard and physical never really deep at all. I didn't really believe that there could be a HEA since there are too many unanswered questions.

Janet Dailey, as always did a great job in exposing the estacy of attraction. I found and read only the middle half of that book when I was sixteen years old, and was so captivated and hooked that I have been looking for that book ever since. Now in my forties I still can't get that book out of my thoughts. I Janet Dailey is a woman whom I feel is or has been in love and understands the beautiful and compelling feeling that God intended to be experienced between a man and a woman. It is a beautiful book.

This book was a huge disappointment to me! I have a compulsion to finish every book I start but this one made that task very difficult! Jordan was such a pig headed jerk! And Amanda was such a coward! He practically turned her into a whore forcing her to marry him to help her family financially. I picked this book up at a garage sale and next summer I'll be selling it in mine. Janet, you've come a long way baby!

It is the first book that I've read by this author. I don't know what to think. The hero (?) acted like such a jerk throughout most of the book. He may have been the epitome of virility but he had no other redeemable qualities. It was often hinted that his cynical attitude was because of his childhood but the reader was never told what his childhood was like beyond the fact he was often ignored by his wealthy parents.

The heroine was somewhat more realistic in that she let her heart lead her into what seemed to be a one sided love affair. I say realistic because I have seen so many young women fall in love with men who they think will change their ways. I'm not saying that it is sensible.

But it's not realistic for him to change on the last page and the reader leave with the feeling of a "happy ever after".

Needless to say I am not going to keep this book to re-read at some later date.