8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding blend of science fiction and romance, January 5, 2001
This review is from: Raven's Heart (Paperback)
Raven's Heart is a fast paced thriller that combines well thought out science fiction with action and political intrigue. But the heart of the story is the relationship between the agent Val Tarrant, and the fugitive Raven Armistead. Even as he pursues Raven, Val finds himself attracted to the beautiful revolutionary. As events unfold they become reluctant allies, struggling to balance their mutual attraction against a system which forces them to be enemies. And in the end, Raven and Val must learn to trust each other, if they are to survive and defeat the forces that threaten to destroy them both.
I first read the e-book edition of this story, and am delighted to see it finally available in paperback. This is an outstanding debut novel from a fresh new voice in science fiction. I loved this book and you will too.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding blend of science fiction and romance, December 3, 1998
Raven's Heart is a fast paced thriller that combines well thought out science fiction with action and political intrigue. But the heart of the story is the relationship between the agent Val Tarrant, and the fugitive Raven Armistead. Even as he pursues Raven, Val finds himself attracted to the beautiful revolutionary. As events unfold they become reluctant allies, struggling to balance their mutual attraction against a system which forces them to be enemies. And in the end, Raven and Val must learn to trust each other, if they are to survive and defeat the forces that threaten to destroy them both. An outstanding debut novel from a fresh new voice in science fiction. I loved this book and you will too. Highly recommended.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You can't judge a book by..., October 11, 2007
This review is from: Raven's Heart (Paperback)
Jennifer Dunne, Raven's Heart (Speculation Press, 2000)
Over the past few years, as my status as a reviewer has gained a bit of street cred (and believe me, since I know what you're saying to yourself-- no one is more surprised about that than I am!) and I've has a bunch of solicitations for reviews come in, I've developed an hypothesis regarding vanity-published and self-published books-- you can, in fact, judge a book by its cover. I haven't progressed far enough to know what it is about these covers that makes them different, though I have identified a number of small factors (use of clip-art and tired, cliched fonts is rampant in vanity-press book covers), but the short version of this is "I know a vanity-press book when I see it." Most of the time, anyway. When I saw the cover art for Jennifer Dunne's Raven's Heart, it screamed "vanity pub" at me. (Note: this is not a solicited review. I know JD from LiveJournal.) I looked up Speculation Press, and that seems to not be the case. So it's not 100%, but man, check this cover art. Seriously. (Thankfully, Cerridwen Press seems to have re-released it in 2007 under the title Fugitive Lovers-- the description on that one is exactly the same as the description on this one. Much better cover art.)
In any case, once you've made it past the cover, the story: a future Earth was devastated by a cataclysm that saw, in its wake, the rise of extrasensory powers in some humans, now called Aurics. The Aurics simply want to be dealt with the same as other humans, but a strongly religious faction of the populace believe them to be the spawn of the devil, and think they should be exterminated. Unfortunately, a number of people who think this way are part of the ICP, the American police force. Our story opens with Raven Armistead, daughter of the founder of the Auric Rights League, in the process of sabotaging the computer system where the ICP has stored intelligence on the Aurics, as the league fears the ICP will use this information for a widespread roundup just before the Auric Rights Bill being debated in Congress is set for a vote. Something goes wrong with the sabotaging, of course, and Raven finds herself locked in a room with ICP officer Val Tarrant. Cue flying sparks. Armistead and Tarrant play a complex game of cat and dog while trying to figure out who's actually playing for what side while simultaneously fighting their feelings for one another.
I don't think I need to tell you that this isn't the latest Ian McEwan novel or what have you; it's romance, albeit romance with a hefty dose of sci-fi thrown in for good measure. (Not hard sci-fi, though, so you technophobes can come out of hiding.) A good, solid genre romance can be an incredibly satisfying read, as long as you realize what you're getting; the formula remains the same (and thus the big plot twists will always twist in predictable ways), but it's what an author does with the formula that makes a romance work or not. Are the characters three-dimensional? Is the action believable? Is the sex hot?
In this case, the answers are yes, yes, and yes, with an emphasis on the third "yes." Amazing things can happen to sex scenes when one of your characters is fighting with himself over a vow of chastity, I tell you! The second "yes" is a bit weaker, though that's probably because I was expecting the sci-fi angle to be at least a bit harder (to be fair, Dunne gets around this by having her characters be part of a society where this stuff is new to them, so they don't know any more about it than we do; a perfectly viable situation, in context).
So sometimes you can't judge a book by its cover. This is one of those times. You may be embarrassed to be seen with it (pick up the new edition!), but it's a good read. ***
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