Customer Reviews

Open Season

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(57)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

If you're a fan of Linda Howard's (and if you're not, you should be), you will find "Open Season" to be a satisfying read even though it doesn't offer anything new. If fact, I thought this book was VERY similar to Howard's "Dream Man" without the psychic elements. But hey, "Dream Man" was a great book, so a repeat isn't completely uncalled for.

The core story is about a small-town librarian, Daisy Minor, who wakes up on her 34th birthday and realizes that her hair is boring, her clothes are boring, her job is boring, she's boring. Not to mention lonely. Daisy decides that if she doesn't want to spend her life alone, she needs to get busy, and the fastest way to get results is to do a complete make-over into a "party" girl. Sure enough, there is a beautiful, sexy woman under all her frowsiness. Before she even starts her transformation, she butts heads with the new police chief, Jack Russo, an apparent fish-out-of-water Yankee in this sleepy southern berg. He's big, he's intimidating, he's rude. He's also very sexy . As Daisy ventures out to strut her new stuff at the local bars, he becomes concerned that she's way too naive to realize when she's attracted the wrong kind of attention. Daisy wants him to get out of her way so she can continue her man hunt. Dane - I mean Jack - decides that he needs to stick close for her own protection. Then he decides that he just needs to stick close. Somewhere along the way there's a crime to solve and Daisy becomes a target for bad guys. Which means, of course, that Daisy and Jack need to have some hot love scenes.

Howard's unique style and humor are evident throughout the book. Daisy's schemes to get the word out that she's available are hysterical, and you will never see colored condoms in the same light. Both of the lead characters are appealing, but Daisy is the more finely drafted of the two. Her ernest attempts to be a party girl are charming. I particularly appreciated that she isn't one of those ninny romantic heroines who has to go do something foolish that she's been warned not to do in order to prove how independent and spirited she is. In fact, when Jack thinks she's left a safe haven he's found for her, she lets him have it. Her response: "I'm safe here; why would I leave? That's what always happens in movies; either the woman or the kid disobeys instructions and does exactly what they've been told not to do, thereby putting both themselves and everyone else in danger. I've always thought that if they were that stupid, then let them die before they have a chance to breed." Hallelujah!

The mystery plot is good, but the romance is better. The secondary characters are well-developed, especially the bad guys. All in all, this is a quick read, but a good one.

Once I found out Open Season is about a librarian who has a make over and moves out of her mother's house I couldn't wait to read it since I'm a librarian.

Linda Howard delivers another winner with Open Season, a cute, sexy, satisfying read that has more comedy than suspense. I guffawed at several passages (especially the scene involving a box of condoms). Linda Howard is one of the few romance writers who is an "auto-buy" for me. She never disappoints....Although, I'm rating this title four stars, because, I don't think Open Season ranks among the best she's written. I would have liked a little more characterization of the main characters. But Open Season's still darn good. I very much enjoy reading Ms. Howard's analysis and observations of nonverbal language that is part of her narrative voice. Running into those small gems are one of the joys of being a reader.

Linda Howard is much like Susan Elizabeth Phillips on an ordinary day: reliably good. Always deft and always satisfying.

The small town setting of Hillsboro, Alabama are reminiscent of Linda Howard's earlier After the Night and Jennifer Crusie's hilarious Tell Me Lies and The Cinderella Deal. Other Linda Howard titles that top my list are: Son of the Morning, the Mackenzie series, Diamond Bay, the short stories Lake of Dreams and Overload.

Ive been utterly mislead by some ad and/or review in buying this book. I dont know anything else by this author, but Open Season, in spite of Linda Howards skilful craftmanship as a writer, to me has been an absolute flop. As it is written in the back-cover, it defied me as a reader to put it down... but only because I was eager to find whether and whenever the story would become something close to a thriller, how and where I would eventually face the blending heart-pounding romance and breathless intrigue its back-cover is talking about. I found rather hard to believe that the author is a woman: to me the psychology of her main character is very like the caricature of feminine psychology that one would expect from a terribly outdated, oldfashioned man. Here and there depictions of petty details totally irrelevant to the story are dealt with for an unbelievable number of long paragraphs or even whole pages, that in fact Ive skipped altogether. The best evidence are all the pages spent about Daisys pet - pages, moreover, full of the most obvious... common places concerning puppies. Finally, the quick evolution of the relationship between the two main characters from an... affair to a dedicated, everlasting, family growing love is simply ridiculous. My opinion is that this book is best epitomized by the following quotations: She had a lover and a dog: could life get any better? (p.196) to be matched later on by her mate statement: ...A naked woman and a fuzzy puppy: what more can a man want?...

As a Linda Howard fan, I can honestly say that Open Season was a dissapointment. After waiting about a year since Mr. Perfect, I was expecting more. Howard, in my opinion, is too talented to be writing "cute" or "adorable" romance/suspense novels with a formula feeling. Daisy Minor is a nice character, but a little too naive. Her transformation was well described, but her single/nightclub adventures were too quick. (I found her mother and aunt to be more interesting.) The romance between Daisy and Jack was too rushed. One minute Daisy is irritated by him and less than 18 hours later they're in bed. The sex scenes are lukewarm. It felt like a pseudo-replay of Mr Perfect, except Jaine was funnier and more feisty. The crime/criminals in the book were also very thin. It was an interesting idea but there did not seem to be time for detail. If the book was 400-500 pages, there might have been room to make the story interesting.The best feature in the story was the Party Pak. Linda Howard has written plenty of great books with a suspenseful story, likable heroines, enough sexual tension to give you a backache, and hot love scenes. That's what her fans expect, but I don't think she delivered this time.

If you're looking for one of those heart-throbbing romances, typical of the old Linda Howard, you're going to be disappointed with this. Unfortunately, Ms. Howard has been slowly but surely drifting away from her gripping love stories and venturing more toward--well, simply telling a story. Yes, there's a romance here, but it's just a small part of the whole, instead of BEING the whole. I was left in awe when I read Mackenzie's Mountain, truly half in love with Zane when I finished Mackenzie's Pleasure, wistful by the power and strength of Kell Sabin from Diamond Bay . . . . Open Season, however, insomuch as the story was enjoyable, left me with little more than a closed book when I was finished reading. Sorry, Ms. Howard. In fact, I'm one of your biggest fans. But I miss the love in your love stories.

I've probably read every book Linda Howard has written. She's always been one of those authors that I automatically buy without reading about the plot or checking other people's opinion. This was a "cute" story, but it lacked in-depth character development and history. I think she spent the majority of her time trying to write funny or clever passages. I wasn't expecting 336 pages of cute. Actually, the first passage in the book (which is about a Mexican girl of 17 crossing the border illegally to start a new life in the US) is more of what I was expecting. I cared more about this girl than I did about the main character. That's not to say that cute and funny make for a bad book - but it's less than I expect from Linda Howard. If you look at some of her better books (Mackenzie's Mountain, Sara's Child, All the Queen's Men) you will find a lot more to the main characters than you will find in the characters in this book. This book is worth borrowing from someone or waiting for the paperback. It is not worth the hardback price.

I am an avid fan of Linda Howard and haunted the bookstore for this one to come out. When did she start to write such cutie stuff? Mr. Perfect was a four, but was a little too sweet for me. This book has gone over the sweet meter. I long for characters such as those in previous books. The characters in this book are too ordinary. Ms. Howard has also cut down on her love scenes and that was a disappointment. The two in the book are good, but the mystery plot overpowers the other storylines. The last two pages strike off on a weird tangent connecting two very peripheral characters. ...It didn't tie into the story at all. ...

I read this book in just a few hours. It's an easy, flowing book. The story starts out just great, the humor is wonderful, I find that very refreshing in a romantic suspense. But somewhere along the way, this book falls flat. It does not have the depth of Ms. Howard's other works. It can not be compaired to DREAM MAN or KILL AND TELL to pick just two examples of her talent. She has written so many wonderful books that as a I reader I expect great things from her at all times. That may be expecting too much from any author, but for a 310 page, [price] book, I want more. This book would have been presented better as a "series" book. The suspense is minimal and the romance is not all that interesting. I enjoyed the transformation of Daisy and the humor most of all.

I'm not saying readers won't enjoy this story, frankly I would have purchased it no matter what because I collect this author's work, I just don't feel it's as good as most of her other titles.

I always look forward to a book by Ms. Howard and will continue to read her work, I just hope the next story gives me the kind of read I have come to expect from this author.

For those of us who are sick of picking up romance novels that all follow the same basic plot, "Open Season" is a welcome change. Linda Howard combines a compelling love story with witty character dialogue, and a plot that is full of supense and intrigue. It is wonderful to read a book that offers an enjoyable romance and a mystery in which it is easy to become totally engrossed. This a wonderful read for romance and mystery readers alike. Enjoy!

Over the last five or so books, Linda Howard has become a master at combining suspense, romance, and humor. "Open Season" is no exception; it combines many of the elements that made "Mr. Perfect" such a wonderful book.

The heroine of "Open Season," Daisy Minor, is a tremendously charming character. Her honesty, forthrightness, sense of humor, and family reliance all make her an unusually strong and well-developed character. The reluctant hero, Jack, has the bone-deep strength combined with incredibly dangerous effectiveness that always make Linda Howard's heroes so incredibly appealing.

The suspense/mystery in "Open Season" is well-done, as usual with Howard. It's interesting enough to provide tension but not so overwhelming as to detract from the characterization and relationship development.

As in Howard's previous effort, "Mr. Perfect," we get quite a few laugh-out loud moments, which add tremendously to the appeal.

My only criticism is that the relationship between Jack and Daisy somehow lacks the intensity normally found in Howard's books. The relationship lacks both the "immediate sensing of mate" basis typical to Howard books and the "gradual deepening of romance" generally found in romance novels.

"Open Season" is a tremendous demonstration of all that has made Howard a leader in the field of romantic suspense. The wonderful humor, great suspense, and intense sexuality combine to make this another masterful effort by Howard. It was a lot of fun to read!