Reviews

Suzanna's Surrender: A Selection from the Calhoun Women: Suzanna & Megan by Nora Roberts

karenholmes's review against another edition

3.0

Conclusion to the series, at least intended conclusion as the emeralds are resolved and the 4 sisters are married. I'm guessing as readers asked for more about the Calhoums, Nora Roberts obliged and wrote about Sean's sister, Megan including her in the Calhoum series afterwards.
I was wondering what kind of man would Suzanna get, and was not surprised but was not very pleased either. I liked the parallelisms each sister has with her great grand mother but the romance felt rushed mostly because category romances are rarely capable of having also a mystery as their cuore.
It's easy to read, and easy to forget.

anbananova's review against another edition

4.0

i wasn’t expecting much from this book but i liked it. fmc wasn’t a helpless dormant. and finally livingston’s story was over. 

kathydavie's review against another edition

3.0

These last two stories in the Calhoun Sisters series were a bit different from the first three. Neither Suzanna nor Megan were as accepting of their own foibles as CC, Amanda, or Lilah. Nor were their particular men wealthy.

I adored how very protective all their men were though! And both their approaches to romance were interestingly brash...snicker... Dumont got his...not as thoroughly as I would have liked but the family was very fair on him...dang it!

Aunt Coco has her own naughty niche and Aunt Colleen turned out to be beautifully formidable as opposed to simply formidable!

The fields involved here were landscaping, accounting, and whale watching tours.

rileyaurora83's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

kellykdowling's review against another edition

lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Ok...I unapologetically love Nora Roberts for all time. And I get it, this is one of her earlier ones, no way would she write this in the 2000s. Unfortunately the protagonist relationship has not aged well here, despite some valiant attempts to infuse feminism.
Spoiler alert: The man our emotionally abused heroine apparently needs is an ex cop with PTSD who bullies her into sex the first time.
#FacePalm Still,if you've got an itch for some early 1990s romance novel tropes you could definitely do worse. Great Aunt Colleen is worth the price of admission!

clevergirl216's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I would not have read these last stories in the series, but I wanted to know where the emeralds were and  how they found them. Then I went ahead and read the rest. The last story is definitely the best of the series, and the main couples (unlike the other ones) were actually likable. 

bookishbelgian's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

beatrixt's review against another edition

fast-paced

4.75

moseyrosie's review against another edition

5.0

12 years ago Suzanna Calhoun and Holt Bradford had a not quite cute run in that resulted in Holt falling off his motorcycle and a newly licensed Suzanna flustered and irate. At the beginning of Suzanna’s Surrender, Holt has just moved back to Bar Harbor after retiring from a police force in the north west. He is starting up a boat repair business and trying to heal from some PTSD. He does not appreciate his childhood crush showing up in his front yard asking questions about his late grandfather, artist Christian Bradford. Suzanna has had a fresh start of her own after a bitter divorce and custody battle for her two kids. She now runs a garden and landscaping business and is trying to help solve her family’s mystery of Bianca’s missing emeralds. Holt is still attracted to Suzanna while Suzanna is uncomfortable about the feelings Holt stirs up inside of her. At first Holt is cynical about the connection between Christian and Bianca but he is drawn into the Calhoun family mystery and by Suzanna and her two kids. Holt and Suzanna begin a relationship but they have to work through miscommunications, Suzanna’s ex-husband showing up to threaten Suzanna, and the crazed man who is so obsessed with possessing the emeralds that he is willing to kill for them. To hear a full discussion of Suzanna's listen to Season 3, Ep. #9 "Nora Roberts' The Calhoun Women: Suzanna and Megan" of Romancing the Shelf, a Nora Roberts podcast: https://romancingtheshelf.libsyn.com/

quinn_0611's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 stars. This has always been my favorite of the series. While I definitely loved rereading it, the narrator was not my favorite. She had this odd, sort of whiny voice for the women characters and I hated that. This is a bit dated, but at the same time there are some more modern bits to it too. Like Baxter's wife, who isn't this evil woman. I liked that. Full review soon.