Shadows of Yesterday (Mass Market Paperback)

by Sandra Brown (Author) "Ma'am, is anything wrong?..." (more)
Key Phrases: Chad Dillon, Harve Jackson, Leigh Bransom (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"ONE OF ROMANCE FICTION'S BRIGHTEST STARS".

-- Dallas Morning News

Product Description
Alone on a Texas highway and about to deliver her first child, widowed Leigh Bransom is rescued from the road by Chad, a rugged stranger with a dark and secretive past. Reprint.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (May 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446360716
• ISBN-13: 978-0446360715
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,853 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reprint - But a Great Summer Read, June 9, 2001

By	Louise Rotman (Ancaster ON, Canada) - See all my reviews

I love Sandra Brown's early books. No, they don't require a lot of thought, they stay on the story line without twists or melodrama, the heros are likeable, the romance is hot, the story line is original, and they are a quick enjoyable evening or afternoon read.
In this story we have Leigh Branson, a young pregnant widow who, eight months ago, had lost her husband Greg-a narcotics agent shot on a raid. Leigh insists never again will she fall for a guy who works such a risky job. Leigh goes into labour while driving and pulls over on the highway. Meet Chad Dillon, our handsome hero who pulls his truck over to the side to help deliver the baby. But Chad too has a dangerous job. And so the story rolls as attraction and love win the day. Fun read.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Insomnia? Try the audio version of this <yawn> book by an otherwise must-buy author, November 11, 2005

By	shereads - See all my reviews

When a book this bad bears Sandra Brown's name, my first thought is, "Wow. Talk about multi-tasking! Writing a novel while having a phone conversation and working a crossword puzzle must have been hard."
My second thought is "Naptime!"

The opening chapter shows promise: a young widow goes into labor on an abandoned desert highwsay and is rescued by a handsome stranger.

The fact that he has a tough time repressing thoughts of sexual desire for a woman who's in labor is a teensy bit wierd, but maybe that's just me.

More intriguing is the question of why Leigh is driving alone, in this isolated environment, so near her due date, in the era before cell phones. What is she running from? What dark secret will her rescuer discover?

Relax. She's not running from anything. She's returning home from a wedding shower, alone, in the desert, with no way to contact anyone in an emergency, eight-and-one-half months into her first pregnancy. Oops! Now she's in labor.

If Leigh has a dark secret, it's that she's about as sharp as a pound of wet leather.*

Hunky widower Chad delivers Leigh's baby in the back of his pickup truck. After that, the plot is as exhausted as the mom. What happens during the remaining 95% of the book is...

(CAUTION: SPOILER)






...nothing.

That's right, pretty much nothing happens. The sole source of tension is Leigh's reluctance to commit to a man who has a dangerous job. Why he would want a commitment from a woman like Leigh remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the romance genre.

My best guess is that Leigh is the only woman Chad knows who lactates on the second date.

If that's not what has him so obsessed that he puts up with Leigh's passive-aggressive whining, I can't even hazard a guess. Aside from her breasts, which must be truly spectacular, Leigh's other memorable traits are a blank space where her sense of humor should be, and an inability to hear tragic revelations from Chad's past without throwing a temper fit because he didn't tell her sooner. She's the person for whom they invented the phrase, "It's all about me."

About halfway through "Shadows of Yesterday," I accepted that the plot twist I was hoping for wasn't likely to happen. If this plot developed a single wrinkle, Leigh would iron it.

So why did I stick around until the end? I blame Hurricane Wilma.

Reading by flashlight stops being fun after the first few nights of a power outage. So before Wilma arrived, I stocked up on Walkman batteries and books on CD. "Shadows of Yesterday" was the one I started on day 8 of a 10-day power outage. I'd have listened to the unabridged description of grass growing.

FYI, if you enjoy audio books during long car trips or extended power outages, there are some great selections in romantic suspense by Sandra Brown, Linda Howard and Karen Robards. The actor who reads Brown's "White Hot," Victor Slezak, adds a substantial amount of heat to an already sizzling novel.

I can promise you won't fall asleep listening to "White Hot," "Chill Factor" or the less substantial but still enjoyable "Demon Rumm." For insomnia, stick with "Shadows of Yesterday." If nothing else, you can use the CDs as coasters.

*Quoted courtesy of Foghorn Leghorn.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I walked away from this book feeling warm and fuzzy., August 25, 2005

By	M. Anderson "Melmom" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It started out very exciting of course with a woman alone on a road giving birth. It dragged a little after that, but certainly picked right back up.

I really enjoyed the love story between the two main characters. I thought it was believable to a certain extent. I mean don't all of us single Mom's dream of meeting a gorgeous man who just happens to be completely loaded and move into his enormous house and drive his Ferarri???