Customer Reviews

The Ruby

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

 

 

Like Ann Maxwell's (Elizabeth Lowell's) earlier books this one starts off a bit dull, but slowly gets interesting. You are slowly introduced to the main characters Laurel Swann and Cruz Rowan. Laurell is a jewelry designer, who's father is top CIA, possibly gone bad. Cruz works for a company that does search work for other governments and businesses who want to keep quiet about it. The two are drawn together when a Russian collector losses a faberge egg that was on tour in the US. Like other faberge eggs this one has a surprise inside: a large ruby. Cruz tracks the egg down to Laurel's father, who recently sent it to her, then retrieved it, taking it off without explaining anything to her. When Laurell is attacked Cruz takes to away for safe keeping until he can find where her father has taken it. While keeping her safe, they fall in love, and Cruz will do anything to keep her safe from the people who will do anything to get the egg.

This book was enjoyable once you get into it, but you need to make it past the first 50 or 60 pages before that happens. This book is also pretty predictable in the romance department, and can get pretty deep into government problems and procedures. If you don't mind a little bit of that however, it's a pretty good book.

I enjoyed reading Laurel and Cruz's story, but subtracted stars for the lack of depth in the over all plot. Whether writing as Ann Maxwell, Elizabeth Lowell or with her husband as A E Maxwell, she usually gives the reader a twisting and turning plot with deep insights into the location she is writing about. Although an attempt is made to do this with Russia in this story, I thought she fell a bit flat. Instead of feeling like we were living in a post-Soviet era, it seemed as if she turned to what we all think stereotypically happened to the ex-Soviet Union, not necessarily what did happen. Tell us, or make us believe what is going on today in the ex-Soviet Union, don't give us a rehash of some old Cold War relics who have no influence or power (or is that the whole point?).

Laurel and Cruz fall for one another very quickly and I am not sure I believe the love-at-first-sight theme. I am getting a bit inundated with all of the ex-marine, ex-cop, ex-FBI, ex-CIA, ex-mercenary, etc, stories about macho men who are tough as nails but as soft as kittens deep down. Do you think these men truly exist? By the amount of books written about them today, one would think that is ALL that exists in today's world.

We get a bit more character development of Laurel than we do of Cruz, but I felt that we skimmed over both of them a little too much. Laurel gets to make that difficult choice between father and lover, and we see her struggling with this decision. Cruz has an interesting sounding past, but we never really see into his psyche. The secondary characters are crucial to the plot, and Ms. Maxwell does a great job describing and using them. All in all, not a bad read.

Ann Maxwell's books are currently being re-printed with new titles under the name Elizabeth Lowell. So if you are looking for some of these older titles, search under that author. Titles won't match, but hopefully the description will let you know which older title it is. The books are excellent and I would highly recommend them.

While this is not the greatest of books by Elizabeth Lowell writing as Ann Maxwell, it is worth reading. I enjoyed it and wish there were more of Lowell's books.

This book was riveting from the beginning. The action continued throughout the entire story until the very end. What a page turner!!

Ann Maxwell (aka Elizabeth Lowell) is great in all romance genres. No one combines cloak and dagger intrigue with romance better than AM. No gives her characters a magical yet realistic quality better than A.M./E.L. In this book specifically, she combines both the above mentioned themes with a great storyline. Why not 10, because in this genre sometimes the romance gets (only a little) neglected