Customer Reviews

In Their Footsteps & Thief of Hearts

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

 

 

"In Their Footsteps". Two decades have past since her parents died and her family drowned in scandal. Now Beryl Tavistock needs to know the truth as she suspects they were murdered. She has left England for Paris seeking answers that she hopes leads to true closure. There she meets former CIA agent Richard Wolf, whom she is attracted to but does not trust. As she gets closer to learning what happened twenty years ago, someone keeps a close tab on her progress; if she gets too close she will join her parents.

"Thief of Hearts". As a favor to a pleading close friend Veronica Caircross, weary but faithful old chump Jordon Tavistock comes to her rescue; he breaks into a country manor to repossesses some damaging love letters. To his shock, he is not the first thief to break and enter as he finds himself facing Diana Lamb. They team up with her helping him find where the correspondence he seeks is and he assists her with her search for rare antiquities.

This book is a reprint of two solid enjoyable mysteries tied together by the Tavistock siblings, but not quite at the quality level of the medical thrillers that Tess Gerritsen wrote afterward. Still both are filled with suspense, action, and romance that grip the reader from the moment that their parents are killed in Paris' Pig Alley two decades ago until both Jordon and Beryl find adventure and love.

Harriet Klausner

Is this the same author that wrote The Bone Garden? Can't be. Having very much enjoyed that book, I noticed and picked up these two stories at a thrift book shop. Don't make the same mistake (regardless of how much you pay for them)! These two books are simply trash. Granted, I assume these were early works and she has apparently matured and improved as an author. So, I guess it's not really necessary to go back and trash them. Rather, let this review be a warning that these two books are not worth your time and not near the level of The Bone Garden.

I'm a fan of Tess Gerritsen. like Stephen King'S "T. Gerritsen is an automatic must-read in my house". So I was looking for the odd unread book and I stumbled on this combination that I bought without knowing exactlY what to expect of it. I don't have to tell you Tess is an author of very gory and macabre books like the Rizzoli series.
Well, was I surprised! Gerritsen writing an Harlequin romance! "In Their Footsteps" seemed to me like an undefined genre, I wasn't sure if it was a spy book or a gory crime mistery, and when I finished reading it, the first part of the book, I was not impressed. It seemed to me to be rather like an exersise in writing without being to good nor too bad.
The surprise came when I started reading the second part of the bi-logy, "Thief Of Hearts" It turned out that the main characters are the same as in the first story. A high society brother and sister. In the first half it was the story of the sister Beryl falling in love and in the second part is the brother Jordan the one who's turn's to be conquered. I was happy for that because it is easier to read a second story when you already are acquainted with the foibles of the main characters. Soon I discovered that the second part is not just funny, it's hillarious. I was cought by the narrative and finished the book in less than two days and I did enjoyed it VERY much. This is a different Tess Gerritsen. Not a violent and gory one but a very romantic female. ONE WORD OF CAUTION: it has too many kissing scenes (and only one good sex scene). Enjoy!

These books are not good. I am a big fan of Tess Gerrtison's later works, almost all of them. I was very surprised that I did not like or find myself willing to finish these books. The childish, sugar sweet romance (over and over again! 'What is it about this man? I take one look at his face, inhale one whiff of his scent, and I'm aching to tear off all of his clothes...') and the implausible very convenient plot twists turned me off completely. If I were the author of these books, so far below the standards of my later works, I would not publish them. I feel cheated, deceived. I bought this because I was a fan of the author. But then I found that the steak I'd ordered was really meringue covered tofu.

In Their Footsteps and Thief of Hearts, are early Tess Gerritsen books. Having only read more recent books by Gerritsen, I was not aware that she started out writing in the romantic suspense genre and was surprised by the Harlequin Romance twist. In Their Footsteps takes off when a party guest who has had too much to drink lets it slip that Beryl and Jordan Travistock's parents might not have died under the exact circumstances they had been told when they were children. Beryl is particularly driven to get to the truth and travels to Paris to find it. As the killer draws closer and attempts are made on both Beryl and Jordan's lives, they rely heavily on Richard Wolf, a former colleague of their parents in the international intelligence trade, to keep them safe. The attraction between Beryl and Richard flares up at very odd times making it seem like the author just dropped in the romance scenes as an afterthought. All-in-all it was an okay book that would have been better had Gerritsen focused more on the suspense and sprinkled in the romance at appropriate times. Thief of Hearts is a follow-up story to In Their Footsteps and is also written for the romantic suspense genre. In Thief of Hearts, Jordan Travistock takes the spotlight versus his sister Beryl. He meets Clea Rice in a very unusual and kind of comical way. Jordan joins her in her quest to locate a rare dagger exposing both of them to grave danger. I liked Thief of Hearts more than In Their Footsteps, but I'm still glad Gerritsen moved on to medical suspense and will be careful not to pick up any more of her books from the early- to mid- 90s.

both stories will keep you glued to the book until the end! and as Tess always do in her books, you'll be surprised until the very last paragraph!

I love medical mysteries and they are so hard to find. When I stumbled upon her it was like a huge gift in life.