Customer Reviews

Tempting Evil (Thorndike Basic)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

An average book. Disappointing. I love Brennan's books, so it was hard to accept Tempting Evil would be less than great, but it really was not one of her better books, IMO.

The story premise sounded good, but the hero and heroine were blah to me and had little chemistry. They weren't in a scene together until midway through. Their building romance, was told to readers or shown in brief flashbacks. This reader didn't get any feel for their relationship. This is a ROMANTIC suspense, so I expected more of a romance. The token sex scene was placed in a spot in the story that made it seem as if Brennan needed to stick one in for the romance aspect. The spot in the story where it appeared was inappropriate IMO. If the scene had been written as a grief/comfort intimacy I would have bought it, but it was more of a seduction sex scene and therefore I thought it lessened the tragedy/trauma the heroine experience just prior to it. I would have expected, after all Jo had experienced, her response to the newest tragedy would have been much stronger. I expected her to be devastated and in grief for much longer, but instead was ready to seduce Tyler.

Another aspect that made this book just average was the villains. They were too over-the-top for me. The main villain reminded me of Jason from the Halloween movies. He kept coming back. His 2nd escape and 3rd return was too much. It became campy. The book could have been 100 pages shorter. The repetition of the same thoughts, rememberances, flashbacks of his previous killings, how and why he became what he was got boring to me. It was overdone. I ended up skimming the flashbacks towards the end as I had read the same already throughout the book.

The FBI agents' roles were confusing. They were not fleshed out enough.

Wow, this sounds like I hated the book, but not so. The story itself wasn't bad. It kept me reading, just wasn't 'can't put down'. It was ok, but lost its mojo toward the end, wasn't on par with her others and was a 'miss' for me. I prefer more romance with my suspense.
I recommend reading it, though, as it sets up the third book, which from the excerpt at the end, looks much more interesting.

"Tempting Evil", the second book in the Prison Break Series by Allison Brennan, makes it clear that being loved and adored can be deadly. Joanna Sutton recently suffered the tragic loss of her husband and son. She is now helping her family run their lodge in
the secluded mountains of Montana. But all is not well. A killer has become obsessed with Joanna... and he is coming to take her away with him. Painted with such detailed and realistic sceneries, reading this book will get you cold in the middle of summer. We have come to expect a great plot and non-stop suspense from Allison Brennan and "Tempting Evil" is no exception.

Although it took me a good 100 pages to get engrossed in this book, (not the book, totally me in a book funk) once I let myself go I was totally involved in this book and didn't want to put it down. I read 200 + pages yesterday alone because I just had to finish it and see what happened!!! Although this is my first series by Brennan I am absolutely LOVING it!!!! She knows how to weave a story and present a cast of likable and dislikable characters. I love the hero's/heroine's that you are truly rooting for and the villain's who you just love to hate!!!! She creates those with no questions asked!!!! A great storyteller and a fabulous addition to the Prison Break Series. Only one problem with this............the next one doesn't come out until the end of September!!!!!!!!!!

Joanna Sutton can cope with the fierce winter storm bearing down on the small rural community of Centennial Valley, Montana; the popular romance writer has survived much worse in life. Haunted by the loss of her husband and child, Jo has found refuge at her family's secluded lodge, but her haven soon becomes a hell. During the ferocious blizzard, a local Boy Scout troop is stranded in the wilderness, compelling Jo to spearhead a desperate rescue mission, aided by a newly arrived stranger with an unknown agenda.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Tyler McBride hears that three escaped convicts are fast approaching Big Sky Country. Hoping to warn Jo, he faxes over the men's mug shots. But they never reach their intended recipient. Then Tyler makes a shocking discovery: Two people are dead, and a killer is among the group, along with the woman Tyler loves, searching for his lost son.
More than one innocent life is at stake. For the sake of those Jo cares about most, and for her own survival, she'll need all the cunning, courage, and passion she can muster to survive the mounting terror.

I really enjoyed this book. Its the second one in her Prison Break series.
Jo learns to love aqain and to try a second time. There was alot of twist and turns and a few surprises that I did not expect, I will not give it away here. It was a little more suspense than romanice but it still was a very good book. I look forward to the next one Playing Dead that comes out in Sept.

It actually didn't take that long to read this one. I had started it on Friday, but because I picked up my copy of Acheron, that one was more important. However, when I finally picked this one back up on Monday, it was damn near unputdownable!

Brennan has a way of writing in descriptions: whether scenery or character development, you get a complete picture of it all.

Joanna still hasn't gotten over the death of her husband and nine-year-old son four years earlier. While she shows a brave front for her grandfather, sister and niece, she aches daily at the loss. Now she's staying with her family at their lodge, working everyday and writing. A successful author, she loves writing the stories that touch and warm so many lives.

Tyler wants Joanna with all his being. He's fallen in love, but is heartbroken when his marriage proposal doesn't receive the answer he had wanted. Still, he pines for her, waiting for her. He's raising his son, Jason, alone after his ex-wife dies of cancer, and moved them to Centennial Valley to be closer to his brother, hoping to reclame the friendship they had in their youth.

Tyler receives an anonymous call... two escaped convicts are headed his way - one infatuated with a woman he cut out of a magazine article. The description fits Jo, and with his son stuck in the wilderness with his brother and their Boy Scout troup, tension and suspense are pushed to the forefront.

And rightly so - for one convict, Aaron Doherty, believes he's in love with Joanna and that she returns his affection. His mental process becomes the header of the novel, and his delusions grow frighteningly. The way Aaron's mind works (the way Brennan wrote it) is enough to give the reader chills and hope that it never happens to them. In some ways, Doherty is even scarier than the second convict, Chapman, a sadistic killer, who was following Doherty.

Action scenes are great - you see them play out in your mind while reading them. The scenery paint a perfect picture, leaving the reader chilled while reading about a storm howling outside the lodge/cabin. While the love scenes are nice, I felt that there could have been a bigger connection between Tyler and Jo than there was. But what pins the reader is Aaron and his delusions - I don't think I've read a character quite that delusional before.

And after reading the excerpt for Playing Dead, the final book in the trilogy, I sooooo can't wait to get my hands on it. September 30th can't come fast enough!

This book was great. Allison Brennan is an outstanding writer. I read a couple of her books and got hooked and the I went and looked up a list of all that she had wrote and bought them. I am reading my way through the list and she is outstanding. She writes in such a manner that you do not want to put the book down.

I absolutely adore Allison Brennan's books. Although I have not read one if a very long time, they were always page turners, suspenseful, and I could never put the books down. I enjoyed her way of having the books suspenseful mysteries, with a little romance thrown in with the hero in the book, whether it was the cop, detective, or other hero in the book. Some of her books spooked me out a little, and I can only describe it as me making sure my back was against the wall, and that I could see every inch of the room I was in. Great books, great reads, great author, really recommend!

The plot is thrilling and fast paced the entire book. You won't read fast enough to know what will happen in the next page... But what happened in the last 50 pages or so? AB ran out of ideas? She asked somebody else to finish the book? It has to end as a fairy tale?

The first book in this trilogy was much better than this one.

AB should stick to suspense and stay away from romance in her books. Her romantic dialogue is so corny and unrealistic that it makes it impossible to believe in or care about the romances she writes. And this book was worse than usual considering the romance between the main characters had already happened before the book started, which didn't make you care about them as you watched the romance develop and grow.

I also thought there were way too many secondary characters in this book, and it was way too hard to keep track of all of them. After awhile, I just stopped trying or caring who they were.

Hoping #3 is better.

This is a five star complete novel! It has non-stop action, suspense, hate, love, sex and evil! What more could you ask in a book? It is one of those books to read in one sitting! You absolutely do not have to read the 1st book before reading this one. Both stand alone very well by themselves! BOTH ARE FANTASTIC! Really looking forward to the 3rd one! S.L. Chessor author of Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers and My Tongue Fell Out. Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers: A Poetry Collection