A while back it seemed like three-quarters of the book-related blogs I follow were a-twitter over Don't Look Down, the collaboration between Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. Apparently, the idea of a book written by a romance author working with a suspense author was a Shocking Thing, as if nobody had ever written a romantic suspense novel before. This is not to say the book wasn't good, because it was--I just didn't find it nearly as good as the last thing I read because of blog buzz, which was His Majesty's Dragon. ;) HMD felt really new and different to me. This didn't, certainly not after reading, oh, say, J.D. Robb or Tami Hoag or Elizabeth Lowell.
There were aspects of it that really showed the romance-novel half of the creation, and which annoyed me a bit--things like the repeated attempts of the side characters to sic the heroine on the hero, the obligatory Gay Male Best Friend, the obligatory Precocious Child. The kid in particular was unevenly written, with her schtick of overly precise diction and lack of contractions being inconsistent; only when the dialogue gave up on that for her did she actually feel like a real character to me. (And to be fair, she also has some good mileage towards the end where she contributes to the action and yet remains a believable child character.) The hero and heroine weren't anything terribly out of the ordinary, though J.T. is likable with the whole thing he has going on of "incredibly competent when he's in Special Forces mode, a bit awkward and clueless at all other times" thing, and Lucy at no point ever does anything stupid.
Decent enough fluff read, though I had to slog a bit through the kid's stuffier dialogue and the interminable conversations trying to throw Lucy at J.T. Three stars.
There were aspects of it that really showed the romance-novel half of the creation, and which annoyed me a bit--things like the repeated attempts of the side characters to sic the heroine on the hero, the obligatory Gay Male Best Friend, the obligatory Precocious Child. The kid in particular was unevenly written, with her schtick of overly precise diction and lack of contractions being inconsistent; only when the dialogue gave up on that for her did she actually feel like a real character to me. (And to be fair, she also has some good mileage towards the end where she contributes to the action and yet remains a believable child character.) The hero and heroine weren't anything terribly out of the ordinary, though J.T. is likable with the whole thing he has going on of "incredibly competent when he's in Special Forces mode, a bit awkward and clueless at all other times" thing, and Lucy at no point ever does anything stupid.
Decent enough fluff read, though I had to slog a bit through the kid's stuffier dialogue and the interminable conversations trying to throw Lucy at J.T. Three stars.
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