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jen85's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
rosali's review
4.0
Jazzie wird Zeuge vom Mord an ihrer Mutter und sie weiss wer der Mörder ist. Darum muss sie jetzt ihre kleine Schwester beschützen.
In der Reittherapie fasst sie langsam Vertrauen in die Praktikantin Taylor. Kaum beginnt sie sich zu öffnen, ist ihnen der Mörder schon auf den Fersen.
Taylor hat gerade erst ihren leiblichen Vater gefunden und ist auch dabei sich in Ford zu Verlieben und ihre eigenen Ängste zu überwinden, als das Drama um Jazzie und ihre Schwester seinen Lauf nimmt und Taylor fast die neuen Männer in ihrem Leben wieder verlieren lässt.
Die Bücher von Karen Rose sind immer sehr packend, und trotz ihres Umfangs sehr schnell gelesen. Die Spannung lässt mich auch Vergessen, dass es meist um eine arme “Jungfer” geht, die von einem “edlen Ritter” gerettet werden muss (was eigentlich nicht meinem Weltbild entspricht).
In der Reittherapie fasst sie langsam Vertrauen in die Praktikantin Taylor. Kaum beginnt sie sich zu öffnen, ist ihnen der Mörder schon auf den Fersen.
Taylor hat gerade erst ihren leiblichen Vater gefunden und ist auch dabei sich in Ford zu Verlieben und ihre eigenen Ängste zu überwinden, als das Drama um Jazzie und ihre Schwester seinen Lauf nimmt und Taylor fast die neuen Männer in ihrem Leben wieder verlieren lässt.
Die Bücher von Karen Rose sind immer sehr packend, und trotz ihres Umfangs sehr schnell gelesen. Die Spannung lässt mich auch Vergessen, dass es meist um eine arme “Jungfer” geht, die von einem “edlen Ritter” gerettet werden muss (was eigentlich nicht meinem Weltbild entspricht).
beccajbooks's review against another edition
5.0
This book was so good, really heartwarming and emotional. Full of all our old favourites, and now some new. I love how Karen brings all the characters into one big family. Lot's of action in this one, although it was kind of a background story to the main story of Taylor looking for her father. Excellent, can't wait for the next! :)
alisonraser's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
mls8957's review against another edition
4.0
I agree with some reviewers that the storyline was less graphic than normal Karen Rose books but I appreciated it specifically for that. I could have used less swearing, though. It seems so unnecessary to the plot. I also appreciated that this book wasn’t filled with as many deaths as some of her past books.
anithabala's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
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? No
4.25
sweetpea86's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I didn’t enjoy this book. I have never read a Karen Rose book and I believe this is book 5 of a series but you can read it without having to have read the previous books in the series.
I found the characters unlikeable and the story rather dull and unbelievable (yes it is fiction but some sort of believable story is better). The baddie is an egotistical criminal who is vile. The main female character has her own background story also going on (tracking down her biological dad) and the two differing stories side by side didn’t work for me. I don’t like giving up on a book and this book was given to me as a gift so felt it deserved to be read. Saying that I will not be rushing to read another Karen Rose book any time soon.
I found the characters unlikeable and the story rather dull and unbelievable (yes it is fiction but some sort of believable story is better). The baddie is an egotistical criminal who is vile. The main female character has her own background story also going on (tracking down her biological dad) and the two differing stories side by side didn’t work for me. I don’t like giving up on a book and this book was given to me as a gift so felt it deserved to be read. Saying that I will not be rushing to read another Karen Rose book any time soon.
veraann's review against another edition
3.0
This book is part of a series. While the main storylines can be read and understood without having read any others in the series, some of the characters and references are lost without it. I usually like Karen Rose books, but this one was harder to get into. I didn't really connect with the characters, the romance just didn't click the way others have. I'm also used to the killers mind/part feeling more suspenseful and I just wasn't getting it this time.
namitakhanna's review against another edition
4.0
Jazzie ,an 11year old, walks home real upset because her mom didn’t come to her art fair as promised, but after arriving home she is greeted by a nightmare. She finds her mom brutally murdered with the killer still in the house. Scared Jazzie hides behind a chair till the killer leaves and hasn’t spoken a word since. Jazzie and her sister Jamie end up at Daphne’s equine therapy center Healing Hearts with Horses where a new intern Taylor Dawson seems to make progress with Jazzie. But Taylor is keeping some secrets of her own and has come to put an end to a monster that visited her dreams since she was a little kid.
An exciting continuation to the Baltimore series where old characters are revisited .You know who the killer is in the beginning but Karen Rose still makes it a thrilling suspenseful ride. The characters are well developed even the antagonist. I highly recommend this book to all Karen Rose fans.
Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group/Berkley & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.
This and more reviews at https://chloesbooksblog.wordpress.com/
An exciting continuation to the Baltimore series where old characters are revisited .You know who the killer is in the beginning but Karen Rose still makes it a thrilling suspenseful ride. The characters are well developed even the antagonist. I highly recommend this book to all Karen Rose fans.
Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group/Berkley & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.
This and more reviews at https://chloesbooksblog.wordpress.com/
paulabrandon's review against another edition
1.0
Hoo boy, this one was tough to get through. It was fucking awful.
Gage Jarvis brutally beats his wife to death, little realising the act was witnessed by his daughter, Jazzie. Jazzie and younger sister Janie are sent to a therapy horse farm, where heroine Taylor Dawson works. She is there undercover (kind of) to spy on Clay Maynard, who is her father. Her lying mother told her Clay was a monster who would hurt her, so she has spent her life running from him. When Jazzie, who hasn't spoken since the murder, says, "Thank you," to Taylor, the whole farm sees this as a major breakthrough, and that the two obviously have a very close bond.
Yes, two words is all it takes to reach this conclusion.
All the various police and FBI and secret squad (or whatever, it was too hard keeping the various law enforcement jobs of all the characters from the previous 18 books separate) make arrangements for Taylor and Jazzie to have a talk over ice cream in the hopes that Jazzie will confide in Taylor that her father Gage murdered her mother.
It takes about 300 pages for this meet-up to occur.
In the meantime, Taylor falls for Ford Elkhart, the son of one of the women who owns the farm - I think? She's actually lawyer Daphne from Did You Miss Me?, but she's partners with owner Maggie or something. Anyway, a tweeney insta-love story abounds between Taylor and Ford (they're in their early 20s) in amongst an inordinate amount of conversations between Taylor and the 101 supporting characters in which she justifies her actions OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN in the face of either teary-eyed support or baseless hostility. It. Just. Never. Ends.
(The book goes into very deep detail about why Taylor took so long to track Clay down and the others saying how dare she think he's a bad man. Her adoptive father went to extreme lengths to change her identity because Taylor's mother-his wife-claimed Clay was a monster. You know, without ever once using his skills to see if all this secrecy was even necessary.)
Karen Rose obviously likes to catch up her dedicated readers on what is happening in the lives of previous characters. These are clearly the people who give her books 4 and 5 stars. I was a dedicated reader, because she has delivered some rippers like Count To Ten, You Can't Hide, Silent Scream, No One Left To Tell, but she just seems to get worse and worse. The focus has shifted from suspenseful, complex plots to simply info-dumping us on the antics of characters in previous books and what they're up to now. This is book 19 and she's bringing in characters who have been around since book 3!!!
There is no plot here. Gage killed his wife, tried to frame someone for it, and now he's after his daughter and Taylor. That's it. There are absolutely zero surprises on offer here.
I legitimately don't see how these characters could be considered interesting. They're all perfect. Complete and total martyrs (holy fuck, they all never stop blaming themselves for anything they can think of) but perfect. All of them have also either been stalked, shot or kidnapped. (Mostly kidnapped.) It's ridiculous. JD, Joseph, Clay, Stevie, Daphne, Merrylegs and Gargamel...they're all completely interchangeable. They take up so much plot space that Taylor and Ford almost feel like supporting characters in their own story. Not that their love story has much bite.
The other problem is that because Ford and Taylor are so young, they don't have the ability to drive the story forward themselves. It's up to all the law enforcement personnel surrounding them to create the plans and push the plot where it needs to go, and Ford and Taylor are simply along for the ride. It robs them of any vitality or interest. Ford in particular was just...there. He provided no purpose in the plot other than the love interest who gets an erection at inappropriate times. Ugh.
Even more than 300 pages in, Rose still feels the need to treat you like an idiot by repeating plot elements over and over again. 350 pages in, I believe Taylor asks, "How did Gage frame that guy?" And it all gets explained again. Are you kidding me? We've already been told half a dozen times in other conversations! It's insulting, because it's not hard to keep track of what's happened, BECAUSE FUCK-ALL HAS HAPPENED!!!
There was some mild effectiveness in Jazzie's chapters. I felt for her situation. She and her sister Janie were believably described. Somewhere inside this bloated pile of shit was a suspenseful, streamlined story in which Jazzie and Janie are hunted down by their killer father, with therapy worker Taylor in the crosshairs. Taylor's backstory of searching for her father would have also fitted in nicely with this.
But Rose drags in a ton of previous characters, info-dumps their backstories, the events of the books they were in, what they're up to now, and how they're all connected to one another, and the actual plot of the book gets shoved into the background. If you want to learn what happened to ancillary characters in previous books and what's happening in their lives now, this might be up your alley. If you're after a romantic thriller with an interesting plot and characters, you've stepped into the wrong closet. Absolutely fuck-all happens in this snorefest.
Gage Jarvis brutally beats his wife to death, little realising the act was witnessed by his daughter, Jazzie. Jazzie and younger sister Janie are sent to a therapy horse farm, where heroine Taylor Dawson works. She is there undercover (kind of) to spy on Clay Maynard, who is her father. Her lying mother told her Clay was a monster who would hurt her, so she has spent her life running from him. When Jazzie, who hasn't spoken since the murder, says, "Thank you," to Taylor, the whole farm sees this as a major breakthrough, and that the two obviously have a very close bond.
Yes, two words is all it takes to reach this conclusion.
All the various police and FBI and secret squad (or whatever, it was too hard keeping the various law enforcement jobs of all the characters from the previous 18 books separate) make arrangements for Taylor and Jazzie to have a talk over ice cream in the hopes that Jazzie will confide in Taylor that her father Gage murdered her mother.
It takes about 300 pages for this meet-up to occur.
In the meantime, Taylor falls for Ford Elkhart, the son of one of the women who owns the farm - I think? She's actually lawyer Daphne from Did You Miss Me?, but she's partners with owner Maggie or something. Anyway, a tweeney insta-love story abounds between Taylor and Ford (they're in their early 20s) in amongst an inordinate amount of conversations between Taylor and the 101 supporting characters in which she justifies her actions OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN in the face of either teary-eyed support or baseless hostility. It. Just. Never. Ends.
(The book goes into very deep detail about why Taylor took so long to track Clay down and the others saying how dare she think he's a bad man. Her adoptive father went to extreme lengths to change her identity because Taylor's mother-his wife-claimed Clay was a monster. You know, without ever once using his skills to see if all this secrecy was even necessary.)
Karen Rose obviously likes to catch up her dedicated readers on what is happening in the lives of previous characters. These are clearly the people who give her books 4 and 5 stars. I was a dedicated reader, because she has delivered some rippers like Count To Ten, You Can't Hide, Silent Scream, No One Left To Tell, but she just seems to get worse and worse. The focus has shifted from suspenseful, complex plots to simply info-dumping us on the antics of characters in previous books and what they're up to now. This is book 19 and she's bringing in characters who have been around since book 3!!!
There is no plot here. Gage killed his wife, tried to frame someone for it, and now he's after his daughter and Taylor. That's it. There are absolutely zero surprises on offer here.
I legitimately don't see how these characters could be considered interesting. They're all perfect. Complete and total martyrs (holy fuck, they all never stop blaming themselves for anything they can think of) but perfect. All of them have also either been stalked, shot or kidnapped. (Mostly kidnapped.) It's ridiculous. JD, Joseph, Clay, Stevie, Daphne, Merrylegs and Gargamel...they're all completely interchangeable. They take up so much plot space that Taylor and Ford almost feel like supporting characters in their own story. Not that their love story has much bite.
The other problem is that because Ford and Taylor are so young, they don't have the ability to drive the story forward themselves. It's up to all the law enforcement personnel surrounding them to create the plans and push the plot where it needs to go, and Ford and Taylor are simply along for the ride. It robs them of any vitality or interest. Ford in particular was just...there. He provided no purpose in the plot other than the love interest who gets an erection at inappropriate times. Ugh.
Even more than 300 pages in, Rose still feels the need to treat you like an idiot by repeating plot elements over and over again. 350 pages in, I believe Taylor asks, "How did Gage frame that guy?" And it all gets explained again. Are you kidding me? We've already been told half a dozen times in other conversations! It's insulting, because it's not hard to keep track of what's happened, BECAUSE FUCK-ALL HAS HAPPENED!!!
There was some mild effectiveness in Jazzie's chapters. I felt for her situation. She and her sister Janie were believably described. Somewhere inside this bloated pile of shit was a suspenseful, streamlined story in which Jazzie and Janie are hunted down by their killer father, with therapy worker Taylor in the crosshairs. Taylor's backstory of searching for her father would have also fitted in nicely with this.
But Rose drags in a ton of previous characters, info-dumps their backstories, the events of the books they were in, what they're up to now, and how they're all connected to one another, and the actual plot of the book gets shoved into the background. If you want to learn what happened to ancillary characters in previous books and what's happening in their lives now, this might be up your alley. If you're after a romantic thriller with an interesting plot and characters, you've stepped into the wrong closet. Absolutely fuck-all happens in this snorefest.