Customer Reviews

The Perfect Sinner

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

 

 

The Perfect Sinner is perfectly awful. The author spends over 100 pages going on and on what a jerk Max is and what a wimp his wife is. By this point you would wonder why on earth she would ever want him back. The plot is confusing with too many characters to keep track of and lacks emotional depth. I can't believe this got published.

This is my first Penny Jordan book and the only reason that I'll read another one is because I bought two at the same time.

Max Crighton doesn't love anyone but himself. He doesn't love his wife, nor his two children, Leo and Emma. He's told his wife, Maddy, several times that the only reason that he married her was because of her money and the connections her family gave him as a lawyer. That all changes in a trip to Jamacia to look for his uncle David. While there, Max is brutally attacked and 'sees the light' where his wife and children are concerned. He even sees everything that is wrong with his relationship with his parents.

Maddy Crighton has her love for her children to sustain her. When Max leaves to Jamacia, she realizes that she never loved the person that Max truly was, just the illusion of him. When he comes back 'different' Maddy is unsure of whether to trust this extrodinary change that she sees in Max. It's true that he seems to really love his children, but Maddy isn't sure that she can risk her heart again, no matter how much he is changed.

The Perfect Sinner is a totally unrealistic book. Not even really a romance novel, these characters make me want to scream. No one as abusive and cruel as Max can 'reform' as quickly as he did and all of a sudden decide that he's loved his wife all along but didn't want to admit it. Even if he did love her, no one that loves someone treats them like Max treated Maddy. I could understand why Maddy stayed married to him, but I think that it took her way to long to get a backbone.

Overall, I was very dissapointed with this book.

Okay, one would have to be a masochist to like the character Max! He was a complete creep and he made me want to deck him. His poor wife Maddy should have dumped him way, way before his reformation. By the time he was left for dead on the beach, he made me hope that he would push up daisies and that Maddy could get on with her life. The thing about this book, though, is that it stays with you. A lot of the romance books that I read, I can't remember the plot, let alone the characters in the books. This book hits on some very uncomfortable emotions and I think that you either like it or hate it, no in-between. What this book does do is make an impact. Quite frankly, after I read this book, I started reading Penny Jordan again. I hated Max but loved the book! This is a good book to read on a stormy night

I like Penny Jordan's writing, but I definately believe she went overboard (almost the majority of the book) on how distasteful, the worst character of a man that she described as a hero. He was just too utterly disgusting and abusive to be able to redeem himself in approx. 20 pages left in the book- his complete turnaround. It would have been more credible, if he just sacrificed his love (because he was so undeserving) and Maddy ended up wth a caring man-Griff who was in love with her and her children. How about a sequel where she does end up with Griff, since Ms Jordan left the ending opened?

OKay I read this book a few weeks ago and I'm just now writing the review so please forgive me if it is not completely accurate.

Max was more than just a jerk. Maddie seemed a bit of a doormat. I think the author spent ALOT of time convincing the reader to despise the hero. I think you really do too. The things he does: the hateful things that he says to her; the way he treats her, like a slave; the way he acts like she doesn't even have half a brain and she couldn't possibly be capable of helping out his mother, perhaps Maddie misunderstood?; the fact that he picks up another woman at his freakin' daughter's school play while his own wife was there; yes and even the fact that he says he closes his eyes when having relations with his wife and thinks about her trust fund? OMG!!! How can she take him back? Near death experience or not? I just don't think his change came across as very believable. How could she not be thinking about all of these things when they are together? Oh yeah and the way he expects her to take care of his grandfather while he is out doing everyone and EVERYTHING! I so expected his client's estranged husband to be the one to give him whatfor. Big loss that she didn't capitalize on that though.

Yeah we do tend to hurt the people we love, but to believe that you can be totally forgiven like that after spending 3/4 of the book listening to the whole jerkiness of Max and then think he has completely changed???? Nah it probably would have been better if she had walked away from him and hooked up with the other guy, can't remember his name right off, for awhile. Let Max lie in the bed that he made for awhile and watch her make a new life for herself and their children with another guy. Make Max grovel for a time realizing what he has lost. And then in a later book, hhhmm like Starting Over, I know it's not about Max and Maddie, bringing them back together. Now that would have been more believable.

It's like I've said before some of the contemporary women seem like doormats, when today's woman really isn't; while the historical women have backbones of steel, when a lot of them put up with a lot from their husbands!!

He did not deserve a second chance. Jordan missed a potentially beautiful love story between Maddy and Griff. She should have spent less time on characters who don't matter in this story and more time on the story. Max's rehab should have happened 'on screen'. The ultimate sign that he was rehabbed would have been letting his wife go and acknowledging that his antics went too far for forgiving and forgetting. The final lesson should have been if you love someone let them go.

Having read several other books in the Crichton family saga, I looked forward to this installment. I was completely disappointed. From the set-up I expected something along the lines of Regarding Henry. However, most of this book deals with painting the lead male character, Max, as such an unsympathetic character, I didn't care if he ever recovered from his injuries. This man sexually abuses his wife, emotionally abuses his children, and verbally abuses everyone else. His 'saintly' wife Maddy is so weak and dependent that she is similarly unsympathetic. All it takes is a change of clothes and a new hairstyle to get her to start taking charge of her life--give me a break! This is the worst book I have read in the last four years! Don't waste your time with it, unless you want to end up frustrated, angry, and depressed.

Max Creighton uses and abuses everyone and everything that he touches. He treats his wife Maddie like a doormat and his children are non-entities to him. A brutal attack leaves him a changed man, who now seeks to corrects the wrongs he has done in life. I was so looking forward to "The Perfect Sinner", and was let down. I did not root for Max, but wanted Maddie to move on. I read Penny Jordan's books at least twice, and they stay with me to discuss with my friends, but not so with this one. Penny Jordan is one of my favorite Harlequin authors, and I hope that her next effort will be back to her usual caliber of writing.

I must say I disagree with quite a few of these reviews! I loved this novel! It was so great to read Maddy's transformation from a shy meek shadow to a sleek confident woman! Yes Max did treat her horribly and no he wasn't redeemed but that's why the ending was left open. So in the sequels you see him revolve more. I can't wait to read the sequels too this book!

The premise of this story was interesting when I first read the back page. It says its is about a very good barrister (Max) who basically had it all but did not appreciate it until he was attacked and hospitalised. Only after hospitalisation did he realise what he had and wanted to make things right.

I did not finish it. This was a horrible book, displaying the art of spousal abuse. I hope there are no women who read this and stick to their abusive partners in the hope that `something' will happen to change them. Honestly this was the kind of guy I believe would murder his wife and find some way to justify it as her fault.

Max's `sinning ways' were incredible and his wife had such a weak personalty and really t.s.t.l. The way he treated her was so appalling but what made me madder was the way she took it like a rug on the floor. I just don't understand how she stuck around even after he had made it clear right after their wedding he had married her for her connected family.

Plus, the man said he did not want children. The man said `get an abortion'! The man treats the children stone cold and yet Maddy acts surprised, and still sticks around subjecting the kids to this toxic environment, because she feels she belongs and she is needed by his family and does not want to be lonely when she leaves? Some `fierce' love for her kids that is (not)! All he did was emotionally abuse her and her kids and she stuck around to take more of it!

Another minus was the constant switching between families members and then those family members daydreaming of the past or of other individuals. Really confusing reading at times.

I didn't finish the book but I however don't believe the way this guy was he could ever completely change and I think his son would undoubtedly have daddy issues which would take years to get over.

All in all I was glad I bought this book at the local Salvation Army for $1 because that is exactly what this story is worth!