Customer Reviews

Runaway Mistress (MIRA)

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

 

 

Not the typical predictable story. I've gotten so I hate the mushy same-ole same-ole. It wasn't a page turner, but was a nice escape. I'll read more of Ms. Carr's books.

Wealthy Nick Noble takes his mistress Jennifer Chase with him to Las Vegas. Jennifer enjoys her stay until she overhears a fight between Nick and his wife Barbara who is irate that he chose his whore over his spouse. Jennifer sneaks away for a couple of hours, but returns in time to overhear Nick tell his men to take care of the bimbo. She sees blood all over the place and Barbara's corpse. Jennifer flees Vegas, cuts off all her hair, flushes her colored contacts down the toilet, and changes into army surplus.

Jennifer stops in Boulder City, Nevada where she accepts a job as a waitress at a local café using the name of Doris Bailey. Five days later she reads a newspaper account that reports she is missing along with money and jewelry. Nick will use the cops to find her for him. As she hides, Jennifer falls in love with her next door neighbor, Las Vegas police officer Alex Nichols, who reciprocates her deep feelings. However, Nick's thugs arrive in town devastating her dreams of a picket fence, kids, and Alex.

Though readers will have problems reconciling the seemingly materialistic Florida-Vegas Jennifer with the caring from the onset Boulder City Doris, fans will appreciate this tense romantic suspense as the heroine keeps looking over her shoulder. Once she realizes that she is in love, Jennifer knows she must clean up her previous life if she is going to have a future especially when her past arrives in town. Robyn Carr provides her fans with a fine tale held together by a brave heroine, whose past, present and future converge in Boulder City.

Harriet Klausner

I didn't have any expectations about this book when I picked it up, but that just made it an even better surprise. The basic plot is telegraphed by the title; the surprises came from how it was fleshed out.

Sure, our heroine falls into a community of acceptance and caring too rapidly and overcomes her childhood a little more easily than is likely in real life. However, the community actually has a reality lacking in most such novels.

The characters she encounters on her flight are fully realized. As she (and we) know them better, they are flawed people who have made wrong choices but learned to get the most out of the lives they're left with.

The book doesn't demonize the villains, especially the domestic ones. And our understanding of some characters' behavior doesn't result in their miraculous repentance. We get our happy ever after, but without tying everything up into a perfect knot.

Other things I liked about this book:

The wonderful sense of place. I never heard of Boulder City, but it came alive to me.

The heroine isn't a miraculous virgin - one of those girls who date tough guys but somehow managed to have ended every evening with a peck on the cheek or a handshake - or any kind of a virgin, actually.

There's more gender equity regarding sexual behavior. Neither the hero or the heroine are diminished by his lack of and her possession of extensive sexual experience. Those books that continue some kind of 19th century view of sexual relationships have helped guarantee no survey of actual sexual behavior has a chance of accuracy. (Apparently spirit succubi or perhaps aliens from other planets really have sex with men in their sleep, since any survey of sexual partners or even marriage, finds irreconcilable differences between tallies from men and from women.)

Other of the author's books are counted as women's fiction or chick lit, but I don't believe romance novels are forbidden to have believable characters, with a realistic response to their childhoods, and heroines with 21st century sex lives.

Give this book a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised, also.

Overall, a fairly decent read. Though, I wouldn't pay full price for it. I got mine at a used book store. The heroine is vapid, to say the least, and is on survival automatic pilot. Jennifer exploited her good looks to become her "job" and only sought rich men to pamper her. Only when she thinks she is in trouble does she switch gears and starts her life in another direction.

The supporting characters were fairly predictable. Why, oh why, is there always a troubled teen with a younger sibling who has a drunken parent? Hedda, the teen waitress. As usual, there was no father figure in that family. That sub-plot really didn't add too much to the story except provide a venue for Jennifer's back story to come out.

I liked the last part of the story - don't worry - won't write a spoiler. By then, Jennifer learns what she really wants and thinks before she acts. A lesson she finally learned.

This was my first Robyn Carr book so I didn't know what to expect with her writing. I personally don't think Anna Nicole Smith makes a good heroine for a romance novel which is exactly who Jennifer Chaise in Runaway Mistress reminded me of in the very first chapter. Big hair, implants, aloof, spoiled and the mistress of an older man. At least Anna Nicole married the older man. Jennifer Chaise's career is being a mistress to one married man after another. In exchange for her "services", they buy her cars and houses and jewels and plastic surgery and trips around the world and yachts... All nice things, but the men are married! And she doesn't think there is anything wrong with this.

I barely got through the first chapter and by that time, I already hated her, could care less what happened to her. We are supposed to believe that she makes a complete transformation overnight and becomes this nice, caring person. Okay, fine. I kept reading. I didn't buy it because I never could warm up to her, but I kept reading. But when she told the hero about her past, a nice cop who even mows the lawns of his elderly neighbors, that "I can understand you being a little put out, but I didn't do anything wrong," I quit reading.

I believe people deserve a second chance and can turn their lives around, but first impressions are important and I could not get past my first impression of Jennifer Chaise.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this storyline, but was pleasantly surprised as, in true Robyn Carr fashion, she brings the inner strength of women to the surface and everyday people to life so you find yourself warmed by her characters and the community she creates around them. This was a comforting tale of a woman rediscovering herself as well as the simple joys of life.

After recently discovering Robyn Carr through her Virgin River series, I looked for past publications and found this treasure. I had recently been to Vegas and that trip made this book even more fun. I highly recommend this book for Robyn Carr fans or anyone else.

I could not put this book down. I am a HUGE fan of Robyn Carr. I have the complete Virgin River Series and Grace Valley Trilogy. I'm so enthused! I have yet to read one of her books, where you don't instantly become part of the story. It's amazing. She can tell a story in such a way that you're transported there. Real life fades away. Awesome :)

Professional escort Jennifer Chaise is in Vegas with her 'boyfriend' when she witnesses him standing over the body of his wife. Fearing for her life, she changes her identity. Arriving in Boulder City, Jennifer visits a diner, where she finds a job among a cast of very kind-hearted, loveable folks. While warming to her newfound lifestyle, she meets Alex Nichols. Continuing to hide her identity, Jennifer doesn't know Alex is a police officer. Already forming close ties with members of the small community, Jen finds herself falling as she never has before - for Alex. But as her past is closing in on her, Jennifer wonders how she'll tell Alex the truth without losing him - or her life.

A unique drama/romance with a few surprise twists, this is a heart-warming, feel-good read.

I liked this book. It was funny, it had some suspense, and it was nice. I have read better books though. It was too long, it just kept going on and on and on. The most funny part i think is when she goes home and dances and yanks her clothes off - not thinking of the open windows -and her neighbor (who was mowing the lawn) saw her. She finally saw him and screeched and ran into the bedroom (his jaw was dropped to see such a sight). I thought that part was hilarious - it was great. He is a good character and he is the typical boy next door (wears his heart on his sleeve)love it.