Customer Reviews

The Rome Affair

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Isn't the whole point of female friendship to be nurturing accomplices? To keep inconvenient secrets and forgive the cause--no matter what--so each friend can carry on the messy business of life less burdened by guilt or self-doubt?

The Rome Affair starts from that comfy premise. Then unravels it--and a likable heroine's life--with the methodical ardor of a kitten pawing a ball of twine.

Simply put, it's a Hitchcock-worthy tale with a chilling payoff.

Rachel Blakely, self-possessed Chicago sales executive, embarks on a business trip to Rome taking her childhood friend Kit, all flaming red hair and wild theatricality. Kit's failed acting career leads Rachel to pay for her ticket. But Kit pays her back with emotional support. Rachel has been struggling mightily to forgive her husband Nick, a dedicated surgeon, for a year-old, two-night affair with a stranger he confessed with heartfelt remorse. Kit props her up. She's the only person in Rachel's life who supports her decision to forgive him.

Once in the Eternal City, certainties become less so. Rachel shoulders the blame for a disastrous sales meeting. Then she can't locate Nick by phone at home or office. She harbors dark thoughts that her husband couldn't wait to cheat on her again. Her self-discipline collapses when she's swept away by a portrait painter masterful in the masculino arts.

But Nick, it turns out, hasn't been unfaithful at all. How will Rachel reconcile her own two-night stand?

Rachel vows that what happened in Rome must stay in Rome. Kit agrees. Especially when Nick's social ambitions propel them into a glitzy new role as couple du jour in Chicago's philanthropic set. Only Kit is less dependable than Rachel had been led to expect, with surprises that just keep on coming.

This was my first from Laura Caldwell, a suspense novelist and trial lawyer who applies both skill sets to play delicious mind games. Like any good trial lawyer, she saves her best surprise for last. In my own case, until 4AM with booklight blazing.

Ms. Caldwell knows a lot about people--from the privileged who grin like timber wolves from the society pages to pariahs suffering the humiliations of the criminal justice system. And her writing benefits from a taut, precise style that crackles with emotional intensity. This is not, as some of her previous books were described, a "chicklit" that would turn off male readers--like me.

Trust me on this one. What are friends for?

After deciding to give her philandering husband another chance at their marriage, Rachel takes a trip with her best pal Kit to Rome for a sales meeting. When she has difficulty reaching Nick, she assumes the worst and has a one night stand with a sexy Italian artist.

When she returns, not only was Nick not fooling around - he was setting up their basement as a studio for Rachel. Guilt consumes her, but unlike Nick, she decides not to come clean about her own infidelity. When Kit suddenly needs money for her mother's expensive chemo treatments, she blackmails Rachel with her knowledge of Rachel's "Rome affair," which sets a disastrous course of action with deadly consequences, as Nick and Rachel find that their relationship will be put to the ultimate test.

Caldwell's latest suspense novel is a nail biter that will have you on the edge of your seat - with a great twist and surprise (but ambiguous) ending.

Laura Caldwell has done it again! This fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller is riveting until the very end!

Rachel and Nick Blakely are an up-and-coming high-society couple with their share of troubles. Struggling to forgive him for an affair, Rachel falls into an affair of her own while on a business trip to Rome. This one night of passion is the beginning of a complete unraveling of Rachel's life. With twists and turns throughout, I could not put this novel down.

The Rome Affair is a tightly woven psychological mystery. How much can a marriage endure? What secrets should be kept only between friends? How far will you go to hide your own secrets? This novel explores all these questions and more, keeping you reading until the very last page. My only concern is that the ending, while exciting, can possibly be surmised based on the teasers on the back of the book cover. Even guessing the ending, however, doesn't dampen the thrill ride of this novel.

Armchair Interviews says: Laura Caldwell has successfully stepped out of her usual "chick-lit" genre and secured a place for herself in the mystery and thrillers.

Rachel Blakely has it all. She has a successful career in sales, is married to Nick, an accomplished plastic surgeon. But her ordered life crumbles after her husband, in tears, confesses to having had an affair some months ago. Rachel is devastated, but agrees to work on rebuilding their marriage. But Rachel has a difficult time trusting her husband again. When she leaves on a business trip for Rome with her best friend Kit, Nick goes AWOL during those days, and she mistakenly believes that he is out cheating on her again. So she decides to spend a night with a mysterious and attractive Italian artist. Upon her return, she discovers that Nick hadn't cheated, and she feels awful, but gets over it and signifies her one-night stand as closure to a painful period in her life. Little does Rachel know that her Roman affair is the beginning of a whole new chapter, one with betrayal, blackmail and murder. There are several twists throughout the novel.

The Rome Affair is an engaging thriller that will keep you turning the pages from beginning to end. Or at least it did to me. The story is well woven and suspenseful. The heroine is neither sympathetic nor unlikable, and the secondary characters are just as gray. I don't want to go into certain details regarding the plot, but a friend of mine read this book along with me, and she laughingly says, "Is this author implying that if you're single and unsatisfied with your career by a certain you turn psycho?" I have to admit that her statement made me laugh and that I, too, thought of this as I read the book. But I don't think that is what the author had intended to imply. Laura Caldwell is a talented writer. I read A Clean Slate years ago and I find it interesting that many chick-lit writers have branched out into mystery/suspense or some other genre. It makes me wonder if they'd used a hot market like chick-lit to launch their careers and then write what they had originally intended to write. Hmm. Anyway, even though I enjoyed The Rome Affair and couldn't put it down, I give it three stars because I had figured out the "twist" at the end from almost the very beginning and because of some continuation problems the editor should have picked up on. For instance, Nick has brown eyes in the beginning, and then somewhere in the novel he has green eyes. I thought Rachel was the green-eyed one. Other than that, this novel is excellent and entertaining and I recommend it.

having read two of Laura Caldwell's other books, I expected something equally inventive with her switch out of chicklit and into suspense. i was surprised at the weakness of the product. the main character was unbelievably naive, to the point of being unlikeable, and the premise of the story extremely weak as well as transparent. the "twist" was mildly entertaining, but none of the characters were lovable or particularly interesting, so the worse things got, the more it seemed they deserved it. maybe best to stick with chick lit, where the author's glib prose created truly entertaining and original works.

Having read one of Ms. Caldwell's chick lit books, I decided to read her fiction novels as well. Last summer I read Look Closely and thought it was good. I just finished reading The Rome Affair and thought it was GREAT!! I just couldn't stop reading!! I really felt for Rachel throughout the book. Makes one think that an extra-marital affair is not a black and white issue and it may end with severe consequences. Read this one and you will not be disappointed!

For most of her life Rachel Blakely has led a charmed existence. She was born into money, enjoyed a happy childhood, married a plastic surgeon, and now lives with her husband, Nick, in a charming home in Chicago. Nothing's perfect, of course. When the book opens her marriage is still recovering from the aftershocks of Nick's affair, a week-long fling he'd had during a medical seminar the previous year. Now it's Rachel's turn to go away on business--a meeting in Rome where she's to convince a bunch of Roman architects to buy her company's software. She invites an old friend to come along for the ride: Kit's been taking care of her sick mother and before that was a struggling actress in L.A., so they haven't seen much of one another for a while. The two have some catching up to do, and three days in Rome to do it. Needless to say, things don't quite go as smoothly as planned.

This is the third book I've read now by Laura Caldwell, and I've enjoyed them all. I really must make a point of thinking of her the next time I'm in the mood for a light, suspenseful read (as relief after I've read something very serious or very boring). The Rome Affair isn't perfect. I guessed what the big shock would be long before it was revealed, and Kit's Roman boyfriend felt to me like a loose end. (I very much expected another shocker related to him, actually, but it never happened.) Still, it was a book that was hard to put down, and it really was just what I needed.

-- Debra Hamel

There are so many woman writers whose output is very much "chick lit" even if leaning to the suspense and mystery genres, that a book like this is very refreshing. While it is told wholly from the woman's perspective, Laura Caldwell wisely refrains from the sex scenes and excessively female comments that turn off us guys and interfere with the flow of the story. This is easy reading and one that can well be read in an extended reading session. The characters are real and Caldwell avoids the stereotypes, especially of the male characters, that abound in the work of other lady authors. Highly recommended indeed.

This is my second Laura Caldwell novel since her "Red" trilogy, and the second time I've been disappointed. I had such high hopes for this author based on that trilogy.

Rachel, Nick and Kit were all a bunch of idiots, and I couldn't care less about any of them. The "twist" was as obvious as any I've come across. For the entire book, I felt like I was reading something I'd already read, because I knew exactly what was coming next.

I have one more book by this author. I really hope it's better, or I'll be moving on.

STORY BRIEF:
Nick's career was taking off with promotions and prestige as a surgeon. He had an affair which he admitted to his wife Rachel. They seem to have gotten past it and are moving forward with their life. Rachel is on a business trip to Rome and can't reach her husband. She fears he may be cheating on her again, so she has a one-night affair herself. She doesn't tell her husband which provides blackmailing opportunities for a psycho. Rachel lives in fear as the psycho destroys their lives.


REVIEWER'S OPINION:
The first book I read by Laura Caldwell was a romantic suspense thriller which was fabulous, "The Good Liar." "The Rome Affair" was a different genre, psychological suspense thriller. I was let down because I didn't like the characters. I couldn't sympathize with them. There was no romantic relationship to pull me in emotionally. I felt some negative emotions (stress and fear), but I didn't feel any positive emotions. Two movies came to mind while I was reading this book: Fatal Attraction (Michael Douglas and Glenn Close) and Pacific Heights (Melanie Griffith and Michael Keaton). Lives of good people are ruined because of a psycho latching onto them. The psychos in the movies and this book were all different, but the disastrous effects and fears were similar. This book is about the danger, dread and damage from having an affair and keeping it secret.

I might have liked more showing and experiencing of the Rome affair. It was a very short part of the book, quickly told and without any emotional connection. He claimed to have seen her in his mind and painted her years earlier. I wondered about that. I wanted to know more about his thoughts and feelings.

I want happy endings. This ending was more of an intellectual happiness, which was ok, but I would have preferred something a little more feel good.

CAUTION SPOILERS:
I didn't like or respect Rachel enough due to her stupidity. She was a software sales person. She flies to Rome to make a presentation to a potential client. She quickly realizes that they don't speak English, and her Italian is too weak. She should have immediately delayed the meeting long enough to get a translator, and then made her presentation. Instead she wasted their time in a too-long meeting trying to communicate in childish Italian which was a disaster. She didn't make the sale.

After her affair, again she was stupid by not telling her husband. Because they had worked through "his" earlier affair, she should have known he would forgive and work through it with her. In fact she had more justification than he did - payback, equity, needing to feel desirable. But she chose to pay blackmail to keep it secret, which was stupid and caused further disasters. Of course there would have been no story if she had been smarter.

DATA:
Story length: 372 pages. Swearing language: strong. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: none. Setting: current day Rome, Italy and Chicago, Illinois. Copyright: 206. Genre: psychological suspense thriller.

OTHER BOOKS:
For a list of my reviews of other Laura Caldwell books, see my 5 star review of "The Good Liar" posted 7-28-09.