Customer Reviews

Slightly Shady

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

As a devout Amanda Quick fan, I was excited to get hold of her latest novel. But I must confess that it was not as vintage a Quick book as I had hoped. The relationship between Lavinia and Tobias lacked the sparkle and passion of her earlier lovers and the denoument lacked closure. I agree with other reviewers that her Regencies of late have become plot driven - I miss the sigh-appeal of earlier heroes and the delightful eccentricities of previous heroines. It was almost as if Jayne owed her contract a book at this time - although well thought-out and crafted as always, the sparkle wasn't there. I would not recommend this as a starter Quick book to anybody - "With this Ring" or "Mistress" would top my list of passion at its best. I shall continue to buy anything by Amanda Quick but with lower expectations. She still writes a great book when compared to some other authors on the market.

As a faithful reader of Amanda Quick, I eagerly went to my nearest bookstore to purchase her latest novel Slightly Shady. I curled up on the sofa and prepared to indulge myself in an evening of uninterrupted reading. I finished this book in one night but glanced back through it the next day to see if perhaps I missed something. I did not. The characters in this novel, Mrs. Lake and Tobias March are the most poorly developed of any Quick novel. There is very little physical description of either character - certainly not enough of the male character to make one swoon over. Additionally, unlike earlier novels which allowed the reader to develop an understanding of the inner workings of the characters - the reasons why they are angry, or frightened, or wary of relationships, this novel shows us little of that psychological depth. These are not characters who are "passionate" in any sense of the word. They engage in much verbal banter but they do not burn for each other. It is a pity; for the verbal banter is good and the characters do have potential to be great characters. I was left with the overwhelming sense that Amanda Quick spent much more time writing and researching her earlier novels and is now resting on her laurels. I will not be so "quick" to buy her next book.

In her last few books, Krentz (Quick) has been moving away from character and relationship development and into a more plot-driven type of story. While I think it worked well in "Wicked Widow" and "Lost and Found," I found myself disappointed with "Slightly Shady."

The characters squabbled constantly, and it was difficult to see why they'd have any attraction at all for one another. There was little character or relationship development. While the squabbling was occasionally humorous, it made it difficult for me to believe the attraction between them.

The "mystery" was indeed interesting, although it tied together a number of coincidences that I viewed with a little disbelief.

All in all, it wasn't quite what I wanted in a Quick book. On the other hand, it was entertaining, and I read through it fairly quickly. It simply wasn't up to the standard of "With This Ring" and "I Thee Wed," which I believe are the best of Quick.

I must admit to enjoying every book I have read by Amanda Quick, and am glad that Slightly Shady continued the run. The characters had complete personalities, and the physical and emotional descriptions were rich without slipping into tedium, "It was probably never a sunny place, but on a day such as this it was drenched in stygian gloom." Lavina and Tobias were real and natural heroes, while slightly better than those around them. The supporting characters were more than one dimensional followers or villains. Love scenes were equally descriptive without falling into any heaving bosoms or flaring nostrils. Trying not to give away too much: one love scene had all the problems of finding time to be alone with teen-agers near by. This is a common problem for many women of my generation and this ability to relate parts of a historical romance to modern life is one reason I find the Quick books so entertaining.

Without sounding like a sycophant, I did have one question in the plot, near the end. Why did Lavina go to this one house, at this specific time? Happily this was a one-time problem, and to be fair I can hold on to a question of why and how longer than necessary. The rest of the book had few, if any plot irregularities and was very cleaver and unpredictable. Just when you thought something would happen, it didn't, and something else caught you by surprise, while remaining logical and true to the story.

Since it was announced prior to publication that Slightly Shady is part of a series, the lack of a happy ever after ending was appropriate and I am anxiously waiting the next book. Because the secondary characters were well developed, without interfering with the book's progression, there are more than enough possible sequels to be developed.

Let's see, hero injured in prologue. Slightly short, red-haired female protagonist in charge of younger woman. Said protagonist supporting herself with an investigatory career. Flawed hero joins in her investigation, and he also happens to be charged with the upbringing of younger man, who falls for the aforementioned younger woman while the heroine and hero argue. Give up on this one and just read Affair, which is the first time Quick trotted out this EXACT plot and did it much better.

Krentz has been delving more into the mystery writing and her romantic side is definitely not in play here. Any scenes that involve romance, OK, sex, are fairly clinical and rather remote, we don't really get a chance to know and love the characters. If you look at the plot as a mystery though I think Krentz has done a wonderful job, not only leaving you guessing right up to the last point (I usually figure these things out pretty quickly) she leaves plenty of room to doubt whether we have the whole story, even at the end. I feel we are being set up for a series on these two, it would explain the lack of character development. If not, enjoy the mystery side of it anyway. So, for someone that got initiated into Romance by Krentz I feel regret she has recently taken a different path but as a mystery lover I am beginning to enjoy her slow but sure development in that area.

I've read everything that Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle has written over the past ten years. Her books range from good to terrific, with only a few mild disappointments thrown in between. All in all, a most impressive track record for such a prolific writer.

Then After Dark was published under the Jayne Castle pseudonym. I managed to finish it--though just barely--and wrote it off as a temporary aberration from one of my favorite writers. But now we have Slightly Shady, which is so bad, I had give up on it about two thirds of the way through the book.

Perhaps the main problem with these two novels is that (as I understand it) they are both the first of a series; that is, a Lavinia/Tobias series and a Lydia/Emmett series. In all her previous, stand-alone books, character and relationship development between hero and heroine comes first, then development of wonderfully quirky secondary characters, and lastly, any suspenseful element. In both After Dark and Slightly Shady, it appears as if JAK is attempting to concentrate on the suspense first, and is spreading character and relationship development over several books. Although this strategy works well for other mystery and suspense writers, it has not worked for JAK so far.

Since everyone before me has written the basic plot to this novel, I won't focus on that but my review of it. In all honesty, I had seen the somewhat poor reviews on this novel, but I went ahead and bought it because I didn't think Amanda Quick's novel could be that bad in comparisons to her earlier works. Having just finished reading it, I am personally surprised that this novel got past her editor. Let me give a few examples here.

1. The characterizations of the primary characters, Lavinia and Tobias is rather shaky at best. I have no idea really what both of them look like since AQ did not give any description, and if it wasn't for the front cover, I be tempted to think Lavinia was downright ugly due to the fact that her own modiste had to really work at making her look good in a pair of gowns.

2. From the beginning, when Tobias is shot in his leg, throughout the rest of the novel, he is forever limping on it. Yet we are never told if that is because the bullet shattered a bone completely, or if the doctor set his leg wrong, or what. While I have nothing against a hero who is disabled, it was a bit disappointing to see Tobias always falling down in a fight because his bad leg gave way. In fact, I did wonder why he didn't use a cane half the time.

3. The conversations between Tobias and Lavinia were entertaining at times, but at other times, I wanted to shake Lavinia because she would have her tempers at the wrong time. I was more interested in the secondary characters, Antony and Emele than I was in the primary ones. They always seem to really talk about interesting stuff. Tobias and Lavinia just argued.Although, I must admit, I was getting a bit exasperated with Emele and her overly optimistic view on life. Good grief, doesn't this girl EVER get depressed?

4. The passion. I simply cannot leave this review without mentioning this part. Whereas in AQ's earlier novels, you could really feel the touch of his hand upon your face, the look in his eyes when he gazed upon you, and the feelings deep within that let you know that this is THE ONE was sorely lacking in this novel. I came away with the vague impression that these two would be great friends rather than lovers. I was also a bit exasperated with the mentioned of an earlier marriages on both their parts. In Tobias' case, it is never really mentioned about how his marriage was. Only that the girl loved him and died in childbirth. It doesn't really say if Tobias really cared for her at all. On Lavinia's part, all it said was that her marriage was almost like a dream, a sweet dream at that. Okkkkkkkk....Where's the reality here?

Overall, this book is more of a mystery novel than anything else. But it did get a bit tedious on the mystery part. Oh well. Even authors must have their bad days.

As one of Amanda Quick's biggest fans, I preordered my copy of her newest book months ago. When my order arrived, I dove into it anticipating the magic of Scandal, or Mistress (my two favorite books by this usually wonderful author).

Unfortunately, this book fails to satisfy in many ways. The heroe, Tobias (hasn't she already used this name once a few books back?)couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. I know her heroes are usually flawed in some manner, but they usually ooze stregnth and power. He is sort of an amalgam of her previous leading men, with all the flaws and none of the stregnths. The only real physical description we have of him is that "he couldn't be described as handsome". Not someone I would swoon over. Instead of falling in love with Tobias, I felt sorry for him.

Lavinia also lacked the originality of the usual Quick characters. She is described as possibly short, and later we learn she has red hair. Other than that, the modiste sees it as a challange to make her look good. Even worse she is weak and has poor judgement- I like a smart heroine. The plot tredged along complete with lots of snippets and scenes stolen from her previous and better written books.Loose plot ends abound as you make your way to the end- almost as if she planned a sequel, or had to meet a deadline.

I would recommend any of her other books over this uninspiring tale of two unattractive, poverty stricken characters who can't seem to fathom why they can't forget about each other. Unfortunately, I will forget them all too quickly.

This wouldn't have been such a dissappointment if it had been a five dollar paperback by a fledgling author, but in a hardback romance by one of the best you have great expectations. I just couldn't lose myself in this one.

I've read all of Amanda Quick's books. I've also read all of her books as contemporary author Jayne Ann Krentz.

This was the worst book I've read in a long time. I barely could force myself to finish it. There were no endearing qualities to the hero and heroine.

And furthermore, I feel that the author is just writing the same story over and over again. In all her books as JAK, the heroine is some artsy, "into the metaphysical" quirky person and the hero is the "feet on the ground" detective. In all her Amanda Quick books, the characters are all he same too, with the exception of her earlier novels. Dangerous and "Rendevous" were great books. But lately, all she does is write the same boring story over and over and I think she's even reusing the names now too.

I have ALWAYS been a HUGE fan of Amanda Quick books. There was a time I rushed out to get her books and just was thrilled to find a new one. But her last three Amanda Quick books have been real disappointments to me. I wish she'd find a fresh voice ......

Kat