Customer Reviews

A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

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

 

 

I liked the concept of several authors building a story upon one shared intro, unfortunately that opening wasn't strong enough to support many story lines. The first story by Nancy Warren is the best of the bunch and I rated it a solid B. Ms. Warren diffused the ungainly opening in a solid way and the story unfolded smoothly.

Catherine Spencer's entry did not address the shared opening very well. The heroine's picture is probably in a dictionary next to the word "gullible." I rolled my eyes to a C- grade.

Margaret Moore gave her entry a historical setting, but still stumbled on the shared opening. She employed the tried and true identical twins take, which was OK, but I was disturbed by the way a character's suicide was handled. I don't believe for a minute that a couple could move forward that easily with that event in the mix. I gave it a C grade.

Maggie Shayne's offering was strong and gave a plausible explanation for the revelation mentioned in the opening paragraphs. The story was fast paced, but the heroine bordered on clueless when it came to her family. I still gave it a B.

The final story by Michele Hauf was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, I thought it was finger-down-throat. Let's just say zombie sex is not my cup 'o tea. This one got a D-.

Christine Bell's steampunk entry mentioned in the forward was not in my kindle version. That's probably a good thing because I can't imagine that she could have handled the premise better than the others before her.

In my opinion, give this one a pass.

SIX DEGREES OF ROMANCE is a collection of six novellas by six well known romance authors, and for only 99c. If you enjoy Harlequin romance novels, this is an excellent collection to add to your Kindle. I purchased it for my wife and she loved it, and I read them too..yes, I'm a guy. The stories are wonderful, the characters likeable, well-written, suspense and romance. Highly recommended.

As noted by other reviewers, there are only five stories in the Kindle version. Christine Bell's steampunk effort is missing. Consequently, she may be the only author whose sales are not negatively impacted by this collection of poor and somewhat tasteless short stories.

I largely second Brenda Schmitt's review, two stars are about right although I wouldn't given any of the stories a grade higher than C.

The premise for this experiment was interesting but four identical opening paragraphs (not just one) were apparently too much to overcome.

Have read first three stories, very weak plots, unbelievable with dumb heroines. The book title is deceptive as only five not six stories were present in download. Ok read while killing time in dentist/doctor's office or in situation where you do not want to get immersed deeply in a book!

This was terrible. I am a fan of cheesy romance books but this was just terrible. I started reading the first and second stories, but found both of them too awful to read. After that I was finished with the book and deleted it. Don't bother...

The book is worth reading for the concept alone: How do six different writers handle the same opening paragraph. Some turned out better than others, but there isn't a single one that wasn't worth my time. The stories were brief enough to be a challenge to flesh out, but each story had something to offer. I can't quite decide if the zombie entry had a happy ending, but if not, it certainly had a number of lines that were laugh out loud worth sharing. (and I mean the on-purpose type of laugh out loud.

I really liked this concept. It was very creative in how each author took the beginning in a completely different manner, and part of what I enjoyed most was waiting to see exactly how the next story would twist in a different direction. I will admit that some of the stories were much more developed than others while others I found a bit lacking in many ways (I really did not like the last one with the zombies), but I thought it was an enjoyable read especially for the price (I think it was $0.99). I would love to see more of this type of book and really loved how each story started at the same point and moved in a different direction, which is why I'm giving this a 4. Individually, I would have rated each story between a 2 and 4.

These stories were so bad I couldn`t stop laughing, let alone finish the book. Too bad. Nice concept poor execution.

WHERE WAS THE 6th STORY? Mine only had 5! The cover said 6, but mine was missing. NO FAIR! Was I the only one who had 5?