What do you think?
Dar and Kerry #14
Southern Stars
At last, Dar and Kerry get to go on their long awaited and anticipated vacation in the Grand Canyon. They are looking forward to computer free time, beautiful scenery, and white water rapids. As always, though, life doesn't go smoothly and soon challenges are at hand.
537 pages, Paperback
Published October 19, 2017
About the author
Melissa Good
51 books311 followersMelissa Good is a full time network engineer and part time writer who lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida with a handful of lizards and a dog. When not traveling for work, or participating in the usual chores she ejects several sets of clamoring voices onto a variety of keyboards and tries to entertain others with them to the best of her ability. She is a prolific author of many published novels and a very well-known author of Xena fan fiction. You can find other info at www.merwolf.com.
Melissa “Missy” Good is the Royal Academy of Bards 2005 Hall of Fame Author and the winner of 2008 Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
Melissa “Missy” Good is the Royal Academy of Bards 2005 Hall of Fame Author and the winner of 2008 Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 9, 2017
I enjoyed this book and it was interesting to see Dar and Kerry in a different environment. However, although this story allowed them to show us their innate intelligence and determination I actually missed their technical skills.
I suppose it might be that I used to earn my living as an e-learning advisor, but one of the many things that I love about the couple is the way they excel in the highly competitive world of IT.
For the first quarter of the book this is the most laid back Dar and Kerry story I have read, then everything goes wrong.
The rest of the book is pretty much one disaster after another, with only Dar and Kerry keeping their heads when all around them are falling apart.
This isn’t my favourite D&K story but it is still a very enjoyable read, although I’m not sure the terrorist twist at the end worked that well.
My only real problem with the book, is that it is probably going to be several years before the next one in the series.
I suppose it might be that I used to earn my living as an e-learning advisor, but one of the many things that I love about the couple is the way they excel in the highly competitive world of IT.
For the first quarter of the book this is the most laid back Dar and Kerry story I have read, then everything goes wrong.
The rest of the book is pretty much one disaster after another, with only Dar and Kerry keeping their heads when all around them are falling apart.
This isn’t my favourite D&K story but it is still a very enjoyable read, although I’m not sure the terrorist twist at the end worked that well.
My only real problem with the book, is that it is probably going to be several years before the next one in the series.
November 26, 2017
Love me some Dar and Kerry......
Only these two can take a vacation and find trouble. I really enjoyed the storyline and the characters were well done. I know this book 14 but I hope we still get more. I definitely recommend this book.
Only these two can take a vacation and find trouble. I really enjoyed the storyline and the characters were well done. I know this book 14 but I hope we still get more. I definitely recommend this book.
May 17, 2018
This was an extremely disappointing read for me. I was excited at first, since this story takes place on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon and I’ve gone on two Grand Canyon rafting trips myself. I simply could not suspend disbelief when reading the story. There were so many inaccuracies with the knowledge of a Colorado River rafting trip that I found myself rolling my eyes and having to put the book down often out of frustration.
Examples:
-You cannot have campfires in the Grand Canyon. It’s a national park and a nature reserve, duh.
-The rapids are not constant by any means. In fact, you go days without encountering any ones large enough to soak you.
-A raft, if properly rigged, would not lose anything if it capsized. Ever.
-I’d say there’s almost zero possibility that it would rain for over three days straight in the Grand Canyon, and if it did, they would never open the dam while knowing there were people rafting on the river.
-There is more than one guided trip rafting at a time, and you encounter people from other operations at least once along the way, so the group easily would have been rescued within a day of being stranded.
Maybe it’s just me being a snobby Colorado River rafting veteran, but this book was overall unbelievable and thrown together without any real knowledge of the adventure. Very, very disappointing.
Examples:
-You cannot have campfires in the Grand Canyon. It’s a national park and a nature reserve, duh.
-The rapids are not constant by any means. In fact, you go days without encountering any ones large enough to soak you.
-A raft, if properly rigged, would not lose anything if it capsized. Ever.
-I’d say there’s almost zero possibility that it would rain for over three days straight in the Grand Canyon, and if it did, they would never open the dam while knowing there were people rafting on the river.
-There is more than one guided trip rafting at a time, and you encounter people from other operations at least once along the way, so the group easily would have been rescued within a day of being stranded.
Maybe it’s just me being a snobby Colorado River rafting veteran, but this book was overall unbelievable and thrown together without any real knowledge of the adventure. Very, very disappointing.
December 9, 2017
It was wonderful to meet again Dar and Kerry in another cursed holiday. Great book, great series and great main characters.
January 15, 2018
Dar and Kerry is one of my favorite series, I love the two main characters. The stories about this two women are always exciting and I very much like the way the two act together and also care for others.
In this book they are on one of their rare vacations, but like always they run into trouble. I hope I will never experience vacations like they do. They have booked a seven days white water river rafting tour and in the first few days, everything was fine. But when the weather changed, everything was going south, they run into unexpected troubles more then once. The shifting dynamics between the members of the group and the difficult situations they have to face is very well written like always by this author.
The secondary characters are, like ever, well developed and interesting people with some big jerk added in the mix. But in this one, I missed their friends and colleagues from work, Mark, Mari and all the others. And they couldn't use their technical skills.
The end of the story was a little confusing. I wanted to know more about the crew. .
My rating 4.5 stars.
I hope there's coming more from Dar and Kerry
In this book they are on one of their rare vacations, but like always they run into trouble. I hope I will never experience vacations like they do. They have booked a seven days white water river rafting tour and in the first few days, everything was fine. But when the weather changed, everything was going south, they run into unexpected troubles more then once. The shifting dynamics between the members of the group and the difficult situations they have to face is very well written like always by this author.
The secondary characters are, like ever, well developed and interesting people with some big jerk added in the mix. But in this one, I missed their friends and colleagues from work, Mark, Mari and all the others. And they couldn't use their technical skills.
The end of the story was a little confusing. I wanted to know more about the crew. .
My rating 4.5 stars.
I hope there's coming more from Dar and Kerry
June 26, 2024
I am loath to start on the next book in this series as it's the last one. 🥺
November 14, 2017
Money wasted again....
Author is not writing complete story and goes off what story line there is. Author wants you to spend more money on book 15 even though 14 is Very disappointing..My advice to M Good, consider re-reading your first 4 books of this series which I enjoyed very much. They left the reader wanting to read more of your books and for myself I felt like you enjoyed writing them far more than this one.
Author is not writing complete story and goes off what story line there is. Author wants you to spend more money on book 15 even though 14 is Very disappointing..My advice to M Good, consider re-reading your first 4 books of this series which I enjoyed very much. They left the reader wanting to read more of your books and for myself I felt like you enjoyed writing them far more than this one.
December 23, 2017
I love them, simple. Melissa Good has created my favorite couple. Another avventure I really enjoyed.
August 15, 2022
Dar and Kerry finally got to the Grand Canyon, which we've all been waiting for since... dunno, book 2 or something?
Good has given up all pretense that Dar isn't Xena and Kerry isn't Gabrielle, and basically just wrote a Xena story set in 2002. (Well, with somewhat less bloodshed, thankfully.)
I enjoy her Xena stories a lot, so that's okay, but this one didn't have too much content to it. It was just obstacle after obstacle thrown at them, and then a strange plot "twist" at the end that went absolutely nowhere and got no resolution.
Given that it's Xena, you can't expect realism, but I'm willing to forgive that when it's clearly set in the mythological Xenaverse (which has gods, monsters, and magic, and does yo-yo tricks with history). Good's contemporary series has always had some kind of plausibility, largely because of Good's own professional expertise with IT and networking.
In a book without punch downs and packets, Good loses her way a bit describing things she clearly has no experience with and little understanding of, like rock climbing. She talks about a young (20-something) climber in the year 2002 using pitons, hemp rope, and no harness like this is 1951. She has zero understanding of how belaying works. Mountain lions absolutely do not behave like she describes (and they hardly ever even go into the Grand Canyon). I don't know river rafting at all, but I suspect those who do would be similarly annoyed about that. (At some point, everyone is relaxed because the upcoming rapids are "only class IV", which they're trying to navigate with a broken raft with no power and minimal steering capability, and none of these people ever had helmets...)
Not to mention that Good has apparently forgotten what height she claimed Dar was in previous books, and partway through the book forgets that she had planned for them to drive to Las Vegas and fly back at the end. These are the dangers of serializing a story and then bundling it for a book without a good editor. At least this book doesn't have many grammatical or spelling errors, which is a welcome change from her previous published book.
If it sounds like I hated it, I didn't. It was worth my reading once, and was a high 3 (possibly low 4). It's just a letdown from an author who's been among my favorites for over a decade now.
Good has given up all pretense that Dar isn't Xena and Kerry isn't Gabrielle, and basically just wrote a Xena story set in 2002. (Well, with somewhat less bloodshed, thankfully.)
I enjoy her Xena stories a lot, so that's okay, but this one didn't have too much content to it. It was just obstacle after obstacle thrown at them, and then a strange plot "twist" at the end that went absolutely nowhere and got no resolution.
Given that it's Xena, you can't expect realism, but I'm willing to forgive that when it's clearly set in the mythological Xenaverse (which has gods, monsters, and magic, and does yo-yo tricks with history). Good's contemporary series has always had some kind of plausibility, largely because of Good's own professional expertise with IT and networking.
In a book without punch downs and packets, Good loses her way a bit describing things she clearly has no experience with and little understanding of, like rock climbing. She talks about a young (20-something) climber in the year 2002 using pitons, hemp rope, and no harness like this is 1951. She has zero understanding of how belaying works. Mountain lions absolutely do not behave like she describes (and they hardly ever even go into the Grand Canyon). I don't know river rafting at all, but I suspect those who do would be similarly annoyed about that. (At some point, everyone is relaxed because the upcoming rapids are "only class IV", which they're trying to navigate with a broken raft with no power and minimal steering capability, and none of these people ever had helmets...)
Not to mention that Good has apparently forgotten what height she claimed Dar was in previous books, and partway through the book forgets that she had planned for them to drive to Las Vegas and fly back at the end. These are the dangers of serializing a story and then bundling it for a book without a good editor. At least this book doesn't have many grammatical or spelling errors, which is a welcome change from her previous published book.
If it sounds like I hated it, I didn't. It was worth my reading once, and was a high 3 (possibly low 4). It's just a letdown from an author who's been among my favorites for over a decade now.
June 12, 2019
I loved this series. I powered through them and I mean powered through. I hope there will be another book coming soon. Now I’m going to see what this author has to read online on her fanfiction site.
October 29, 2017
Awesome adventure
I've waited for this for so long and I am delighted to follow the story line. I read the whole book and couldn't put it down. The adventure through the Grand Canyon was awe inspiring. Despite the calamity I was given a realism of a story. I can't wait to continue reading "Dar and Kerry's adventure.
I've waited for this for so long and I am delighted to follow the story line. I read the whole book and couldn't put it down. The adventure through the Grand Canyon was awe inspiring. Despite the calamity I was given a realism of a story. I can't wait to continue reading "Dar and Kerry's adventure.
May 5, 2018
Wow
That was fantastic! Nothing less than what I have come to expect from Melissa Good and Dar and Kerry. I do wish we knew what exactly happened but I can't wait for the next one to see why other adventures are in store for my favourite pair of nerds.
That was fantastic! Nothing less than what I have come to expect from Melissa Good and Dar and Kerry. I do wish we knew what exactly happened but I can't wait for the next one to see why other adventures are in store for my favourite pair of nerds.
December 17, 2017
Typical
I like Dar and Kerry books, they can be a little far fetch at times which this one is, but still we are talking Dar .
I like Dar and Kerry books, they can be a little far fetch at times which this one is, but still we are talking Dar .
January 13, 2018
I love this series! Hoping for a new book this year!
September 22, 2018
I love Dar & Karry. They never have a dull moment. Even when they had good intentions to relax and have a different king of adventure things just seem to go awry. I so look forward to their next.
August 1, 2024
pretty good stuff
I loved the idea of the vacation. What fun to do river rafting. There were quite a few opportunities to showcase Dar and Kerry doing things. But this story was never wrapped up conclusively. And the news seemed to share more with the locals than D &K ever learned about. I hope the next one is substantially more intriguing.
I loved the idea of the vacation. What fun to do river rafting. There were quite a few opportunities to showcase Dar and Kerry doing things. But this story was never wrapped up conclusively. And the news seemed to share more with the locals than D &K ever learned about. I hope the next one is substantially more intriguing.
December 21, 2019
Great read
Good series. This one was a real page turner. Convincing and well researched. Looking forward to the next Dar & Kerry book.
Good series. This one was a real page turner. Convincing and well researched. Looking forward to the next Dar & Kerry book.
February 17, 2020
Excellent
I love his series from start to finish and I can’t wait for the next installment. I love the characters especially Dar’s parent’s they crack me me up. Awesome!
I love his series from start to finish and I can’t wait for the next installment. I love the characters especially Dar’s parent’s they crack me me up. Awesome!
March 14, 2024
Love it!
Moved series to my backyard in Arizona. Love the story and new characters. Wow a lot of drama and a page turner as I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
Moved series to my backyard in Arizona. Love the story and new characters. Wow a lot of drama and a page turner as I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews