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Now Or Never
Rafe's Revenge; Hand in Glove; Partners in Crime
666 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
69 people want to read
About the author
Anne Stuart
204 books2,061 followersAnne Stuart is a grandmaster of the genre, winner of Romance Writers of America's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, survivor of more than thirty-five years in the romance business, and still just keeps getting better.
Her first novel was Barrett's Hill, a gothic romance published by Ballantine in 1974 when Anne had just turned 25. Since then she's written more gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, romantic adventure, series romance, suspense, historical romance, paranormal and mainstream contemporary romance for publishers such as Doubleday, Harlequin, Silhouette, Avon, Zebra, St. Martins Press, Berkley, Dell, Pocket Books and Fawcett.
She’s won numerous awards, appeared on most bestseller lists, and speaks all over the country. Her general outrageousness has gotten her on Entertainment Tonight, as well as in Vogue, People, USA Today, Women’s Day and countless other national newspapers and magazines.
When she’s not traveling, she’s at home in Northern Vermont with her luscious husband of thirty-six years, an empty nest, three cats, four sewing machines, and one Springer Spaniel, and when she’s not working she’s watching movies, listening to rock and roll (preferably Japanese) and spending far too much time quilting.
Anne Stuart also writes as Kristina Douglas.
Her first novel was Barrett's Hill, a gothic romance published by Ballantine in 1974 when Anne had just turned 25. Since then she's written more gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, romantic adventure, series romance, suspense, historical romance, paranormal and mainstream contemporary romance for publishers such as Doubleday, Harlequin, Silhouette, Avon, Zebra, St. Martins Press, Berkley, Dell, Pocket Books and Fawcett.
She’s won numerous awards, appeared on most bestseller lists, and speaks all over the country. Her general outrageousness has gotten her on Entertainment Tonight, as well as in Vogue, People, USA Today, Women’s Day and countless other national newspapers and magazines.
When she’s not traveling, she’s at home in Northern Vermont with her luscious husband of thirty-six years, an empty nest, three cats, four sewing machines, and one Springer Spaniel, and when she’s not working she’s watching movies, listening to rock and roll (preferably Japanese) and spending far too much time quilting.
Anne Stuart also writes as Kristina Douglas.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 7, 2008
RAFE'S REVENGE
HAND IN GLOVE
Another category by Anne Stuart. Entertaining and suspenseful although this time I guessed the villain fairly early.
The story had quite a curious setting, a puppet factory where most of the workers and the owner seem to have a puppet alter ego. Judith Daniels arrives trying to discover what really happened to her friend whose death was officially ruled an accident. Although she comes under an alias, Ryan Smith, the factory owner soon discovers who she really is.
As Judith tries to find more about Lacey's death a dark shadow emmerges decided to stop her. At the same time she and Ryan feel more and more attracted to each other but she is unable to trust him and even believes he can be Lacey's murderer.
I must say that I wasn't too impressed with the heroine's description. She seemed a bit too beautiful to be real. I think I prefer some of Stuart's less perfect heroines. Other than that the book had lots of potential but somehow falls a bit short. It has a dark atmosphere but it never quite felt dark enough, then the murderer in the puppet suit should have terrorised me as I really dislike costumes but somehow never did, the hero has a pretty dark and hard past but it's not fully explored. He has all of her usual bad boy's characteristics - dark, mysterious, unhappy past - except the bad behaviour.
However it's still Anne Stuart so it's still well written and a nice and entertaining story in an unusual setting. In fact now that I've been spoiled by her latest romantic suspense titles whenever I read these earlier books it feels like she was already writing in that direction, she just hadn't fully explored them yet. But there's something pretty unique in Stuart's books that makes us remember them. In this one it was the setting.
Grade: B-
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Jane Dexter wants to hire an arsonist and mistakens Sandi Caldicott,a lawyer, for one of his clients. Sandi is in need of some adventure and pretends to be a criminal. What follows is a romantic suspense plot involving secret inventions whose plans are going to be sold to foreign countries and be used with less than peaceful intentions and Jane and Sandi are going to try and avoid that.
To avoid the selling of the plans, her late brother's invention, Jane needs to set his laboratory on fire since she doesn't know where the plans are but they must surely be there. But soon they find that her uncle might have been her brother's killer and may be after the plans himself.
It's another pleasurable read, Jane and Sandi are interesting characters. Jane starts off a bit too shy, sensible and plain but she slowly evolves under Sandi's influence and provocations. It's a case of opposites attract between a self-effacing librarian and a big shot high society lawyer. The attraction is sooner recognised by Sandi than Jane, even after she finds the truth about him. The book is especially funny while Jane doesn't know about the identity mistake and there's a scene where they visit a crime lord in which Sandi pretends to be his client and his client pretends to be him and it's obvious that Jane is the only one that doesn't have a clue that was really hilarious! By the way Sandi is short for Alexander, in the beginning I was a bit puzzled as I'm more used to Sandi being a female name.
In the end - that comes about with some interesting plot twists and a really disappointing villain (or maybe just a not so villanous one) - she is ready to truly be his Partner In Crime and give him a hard time in the process. I thought the wrap up in the end could have been a bit better, Stuart comes up with some surprising events but somehow we have no real suspense, the tension is just not there.
Grade: B-
HAND IN GLOVE
Another category by Anne Stuart. Entertaining and suspenseful although this time I guessed the villain fairly early.
The story had quite a curious setting, a puppet factory where most of the workers and the owner seem to have a puppet alter ego. Judith Daniels arrives trying to discover what really happened to her friend whose death was officially ruled an accident. Although she comes under an alias, Ryan Smith, the factory owner soon discovers who she really is.
As Judith tries to find more about Lacey's death a dark shadow emmerges decided to stop her. At the same time she and Ryan feel more and more attracted to each other but she is unable to trust him and even believes he can be Lacey's murderer.
I must say that I wasn't too impressed with the heroine's description. She seemed a bit too beautiful to be real. I think I prefer some of Stuart's less perfect heroines. Other than that the book had lots of potential but somehow falls a bit short. It has a dark atmosphere but it never quite felt dark enough, then the murderer in the puppet suit should have terrorised me as I really dislike costumes but somehow never did, the hero has a pretty dark and hard past but it's not fully explored. He has all of her usual bad boy's characteristics - dark, mysterious, unhappy past - except the bad behaviour.
However it's still Anne Stuart so it's still well written and a nice and entertaining story in an unusual setting. In fact now that I've been spoiled by her latest romantic suspense titles whenever I read these earlier books it feels like she was already writing in that direction, she just hadn't fully explored them yet. But there's something pretty unique in Stuart's books that makes us remember them. In this one it was the setting.
Grade: B-
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Jane Dexter wants to hire an arsonist and mistakens Sandi Caldicott,a lawyer, for one of his clients. Sandi is in need of some adventure and pretends to be a criminal. What follows is a romantic suspense plot involving secret inventions whose plans are going to be sold to foreign countries and be used with less than peaceful intentions and Jane and Sandi are going to try and avoid that.
To avoid the selling of the plans, her late brother's invention, Jane needs to set his laboratory on fire since she doesn't know where the plans are but they must surely be there. But soon they find that her uncle might have been her brother's killer and may be after the plans himself.
It's another pleasurable read, Jane and Sandi are interesting characters. Jane starts off a bit too shy, sensible and plain but she slowly evolves under Sandi's influence and provocations. It's a case of opposites attract between a self-effacing librarian and a big shot high society lawyer. The attraction is sooner recognised by Sandi than Jane, even after she finds the truth about him. The book is especially funny while Jane doesn't know about the identity mistake and there's a scene where they visit a crime lord in which Sandi pretends to be his client and his client pretends to be him and it's obvious that Jane is the only one that doesn't have a clue that was really hilarious! By the way Sandi is short for Alexander, in the beginning I was a bit puzzled as I'm more used to Sandi being a female name.
In the end - that comes about with some interesting plot twists and a really disappointing villain (or maybe just a not so villanous one) - she is ready to truly be his Partner In Crime and give him a hard time in the process. I thought the wrap up in the end could have been a bit better, Stuart comes up with some surprising events but somehow we have no real suspense, the tension is just not there.
Grade: B-
March 24, 2010
Stuart creates characters I enjoy very much, the women always have an inner power that keeps them from being a constant doormat. Even if they need a little hell to discover it, it's always been there. And the hard headed men who think they are gods gift to women get kicked down a few notches to where they should be, level headed good looking men who finally find love.
December 21, 2009
Not the best books I have ever read that's for sure. However, it is one more book off my book shelf and onto The Goodwill Shelf!!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews