Holly Seddon is best known for her debut novel Try Not to Breathe, which I very much enjoyed (giving it four stars), though I note I also gave her second book, Don’t Close Your Eyes, four stars as well. So, Seddon is consistent. As am I, though realise my role here is far easier than the months/years Seddon would have toiled over these books!
There’s something unfortunately timely about this book, which centres around a mass shooting in the US.
Although Nora Roberts sticks to what she does well – romantic suspense wrapped in personal drama – here she also explores the impact of such an event on the survivors, and lasting effect it has on their lives… both good and bad.
Tragedy doesn’t necessarily change us. More often, I think, it brings out more of who we are – or were – all along. p 214
It’s a good thing I enjoy Karen Rose’s novels of romantic suspense cos the last couple have been freakin’ huge.
If I’m being honest, I usually avoid books over 400 pages… thinking my attention span won’t survive them. Plus… more often than not the escapism I enjoy from books is meant to be short lived. Not something eked out over days and days.
Thankfully I’m a fast reader and although this is 600+ pages, it wasn’t overly (or even at all) arduous. *Mops brow with back of hand and swoons.*
US author Laura Lippman has published a myriad of crime fiction and I’ve read a great many, including most of the Tess Monaghan series. Like Sandra Brown, Karen Rose and Nora Roberts she usually offers us a good balance in her romantic suspense novels and her latest, Sunburn, is no different.
We take a step back in time – well a couple – in this latest novel by Australian author Fleur McDonald. We’ve met Detective Dave Burrows in her rural romantic suspense series (see my reviews of Suddenly One Summer and Sapphire Falls) and here we’re taken back to where it all began and he’s a newly appointed Detective and has moved with new wife, Melinda to rural WA, resplendent with dry heat, flies galore and brilliantly red soil.
The book also opens with a snippet from 1945 and a suicide that sets off a series of events for decades to come.
When I talk about a series of linked books done well I usually refer to Karen Rose’s work. Rose is an author I discovered a decade or so ago and think I’ve mentioned before that I mapped out some of the relationships between the characters in her early series to ensure I read her books in the right order (given that I started after she had published quite a few).
Essentially what she did was include a couple of key characters with a few peripheral characters playing minor roles. And it’s one of those characters who’d pop up in the next book. Yes indeed…. every child wins a prize. She did however – back then – only write a few books in each series and (from memory) any characters we met before played pretty minor roles next time around.
This book is billed as the fourth in her linked series based in Cincinnati. As a result it features quite a few characters readers have met before. And when I say quite a few, I mean shitloads. And in non-technical speak, I mean there were – I think – a few too many.
You know you can pretty much depend on Nora Roberts to deliver when it comes to romantic suspense. She generally gets the combination and the consistency of the ingredients right and her latest, Come Sundown, is no different. We’re offered likeable, charismatic but not-too-cheesy characters; clear and engaging writing that reels readers in; along with an enjoyable and not overly predictable plot.
I won’t even bother launching into how much I love this series cos I’ve written about it (in general) and reviewed all of JD Robb’s (aka Nora Roberts’) latest In Death books here on the blog.
I felt it wavered a little a few books ago, but it’s most certainly back on track with the last couple being amongst my favourites in the series.