24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
CHARACTERS FLAWED, November 22, 2007
I have been a fan of Sandra Brown for years. Her writing style is always brilliant and amazes me. The stories she creates are so intense and deeply detailed, I am always surprised.
While I don't fault the writing, I just didn't' find myself liking the characters of Griff and Laura. Griff Burkett was a star of the Dallas Cowboys who tossed it all away by getting caught up in gambling and wound up loosing not just his job and reputation but went to prison for five years. Laura Speakman is devoted to her husband Foster, and was driving when they were in a horrific auto accident. She basically runs the company and has given up everything else in order to care for him. He has lost feeling from the waist down. Foster wants an heir. To avoid negative publicity he has convinced Laura to have a baby his way. He wants her to conceive the natural way with his a chosen substitute - Griff. The fact that Griff agreed to this made his character more appalling, and the fact that Laura also agreed, made her character equally not likeable.
I didn't feel any chemistry or real emotion between Griff and Laura. It felt very forced.
I hope her next book is better.
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33 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Characters were not very likable, August 18, 2007
First let me say I was not sure I liked Griff Burkett at the begining of the book but by the end I understood him alot better. Griff was a shinning light of the Dallas Cowboys who got caught up in gambling and wound up loosing not just his job and reputation but five years of his life to prison. Now when he gets out he has nothing, his lawyer loans him a car and some money to rent an apartment. Griff has to find a job and nobody wants to have anything to do with him.
Foster Speakman the owner and CEO of Sunsouth airlines has invited Griff to his home, possibly to offer him a job. Foster is a paraplegic, he and his wife were in a car wreck and he is wheelchair bound. His wife is a beautiful career minded woman who worked for him before they married.
Laura Speakman was driving when they were hit by a truck and she has shouldered alot of the responsibilities that were Foster's. She is devoted to her husband and has given up all her interests in order to care for him and take care of those things important to him. She can not help but feel guilt for his physical problems. He is unable to feel anything from the waist down.
In the two years since his accident he has been upset over not having an heir. He has finally convinced Laura to have a baby. But he is determined to have it his way. He wants her to concieve and deliver a baby, in the natural way with a chosen surrogate. Griff is offered 100 thousand dollars now and 500 thousand when the baby is born. Then one million each year of the child's life.
Although I found it hard to like a man who would accept money for such a thing, we later find that Griff is not without some sympathy and compassion. I found the story interesting and read it at one sitting. It was a bit hard to get into and if I had it to do over I probably would wait for the paperback. None of the characters were very likable.
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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Feelings, August 29, 2007
I'm a big Sandra Brown fan, but lately, she's been really "hit-and-miss" for me. This one was mostly a miss.
I have to agree with those who are saying the main characters are very unlikeable. I have the feeling that Brown wanted us to really feel that Griff was just a misunderstood guy, and maybe create some kind of tension because we were never sure if he was really a good guy or a bad guy, and that's fine, but I guess I need my heroes very clearly defined as good guys from the beginning.
I also had a hard time feeling anything for Laura. She seemed very detached from everything. I kept hearing about how she really loved her husband, but that attraction and love was never really well defined. I never felt that they had that very close relationship. When it was explained how they got together, I got more a feeling that the situation between them was comfortable, so they got married. They kept telling each other they loved each other, but I wasn't feeling it. Certainly not enough from her to think she'd go along with his plan involving Griff. I didn't even feel enough sympathy from her for her husband to warrant her wanting to go through with the plan. I basically felt nothing from her. I was not ever in any way emotionally engaged with her or her "plight."
Given that, I didn't really see why she and Griff had such an emotional bond, if that's how Brown was trying to portray it. He was unlike-able, she was unemotional and detached. The only thing they had to form that bond was that both of them had been celibate or too long. Not a really good basis for any kind of a love story. So, again, I ended up not feeling it. If they'd have had some kind of an emotional spark when they first met....I might have felt better about their relationship. I wanted to get the feeling they felt for each other from the first moment they met, and were fighting that despite the circumstances, but I never did. Again....it was all very oddly unemotional.
Perhaps Brown was trying to convey that emotional connection between Laura and Griff, and I just missed it. Personally, I think it's Brown who missed it.
It's really a shame, too, because I found the other aspects of the book good, and the storyline very suspenseful, which is why I didn't give this a worse rating.
But, overall, a bit of a disappointment.
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