Cold River

Black Falls #2

by Carla Neggers

Hannah Shay, proprietaria di un rinomato caffè e futuro magistrato, ha un talento per le investigazioni che le torna utile quando a Black Falls si sviluppa una pericolosa rete di killer a pagamento. E i sospetti ricadono su un uomo che appartiene al suo passato. Al futuro di Hannah appartiene invece Sean Cameron, che è ritornato nel Vermont per indagare sulla morte del padre. Le sue idee, però, sono diverse da quelle di Hannah. Attratti l'uno dall'altra, entrambi non intendono cedere e si dichiarano aperta ostilità. Ma nel silenzio dei boschi, qualcuno è pronto ad approfittare della situazione. Gelido come l'acqua del fiume. Ardente come un fuoco che brucia. Forte come un amore contrastato.

Genres: Romantic Suspense, Romance, Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary, Fiction, Thriller

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sharpe & Donovan series featuring Boston-based FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan, and the popular Swift River Valley series set in the small, fictional New England town of Knights Bridge. With many bestsellers to her credit, Carla loves to write now as much as she did when she climbed a tree at age eleven with a pad and pen and spun stories perched on her favorite branch.

A native New Englander, Carla and her husband divide their time between their hilltop home in Vermont, a sofa bed at their kids' places in Boston and various inns, hotels and hideaways on their travels, frequently to Ireland.

Find out more and sign up for Carla's newsletter at CarlaNeggers.com.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cold River is the second book in the Black Falls trilogy. It starts out a little slow because of the backstory details from the first book. It does pick up speed half way through and is hard to put down from then on. It has a good ending. I look forward to reading the final book. This is an older trilogy of Carla's. Recommended.

[obsessedwithbooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have been a fan of Carla Neggers for a long time, loving her blend of a hint of romance with suspense. I am a fan of her U.S. Marshall and FBI series and some of her standalone novels but I'm not so keen on her new Black Falls series. The series revolves around numerous characters set in Black Falls, Vermont basically involving a handful families, the Camerons and the Harpers. The Cameron siblings recently lost their father Drew Cameron, who was murdered by assassins because he was asking questions about something...but we don't know what that something is. There are many secondary characters which have cameos in each book.

The second book in the series, Cold River, falls short of the mark for me and was not as good as the first book Cold Pursuit, which I rated 3.0. To be honest I'm not even sure what the title of the book represents because I don't think a "Cold River" or similar was ever mentioned...although most of the cast seem to be outside in freezing weather a lot of the time. The book summarized too much the first book in the series and didn't really develop the characters, the plot or the relationships between characters enough. I would recommend skipping this series. On the other hand I liked The Angel, the second book in the FBI series a bit better and would recommend this read for a good suspense story set in Ireland. I'll probably pick up The Mist, the third book in the FBI series to be released March 30, 2010 but I'm afraid for me this is the end of the road for the Black Falls series.

My Rating: 2.5

http://myobsessionwithbooks.blogspot.com

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever get stuck in a Ground Hog Day thingy? That's what I felt like reading this book. Basically, the first half of the book dealt with everything that happened in the first book of this series - very unnecessary, it's time for Ms Beverly Connor to give a workshop on what works when writing a series!

All very repetitive, I did like the storyline and once the first half of the book was done the story picked up and so did my attention. Ms Neggers does tell a good tale and weaves a pretty good mystery. More characters introduced and more funny stuff happening in the small Vermont town of Black Falls oh yes and a couple of TSTL moments tossed in.

4 stars and a thumbs up for this book.

[Wanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't bother. This book builds upon another story written by the same author. She keeps referring back to the previous book so many times that I felt as though I was re-reading it. Draggy, slow with unsympathetic and uninteresting characters and story line.

[Vivian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointed with this book. The plot appears muddled and ill-defined. The characters are very flat. The dialogue rambles and often times seems quite pointless. The action seems to be thrown in just to provide a change of pace from the flat characters and dialogue. So not worth reading IMHO.

[Sally Lindsay-briggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover of this paperback says it's "Riveting". It was more like an ancient horse beause the story line just plodded along. The ungainly number of characters was ridiculous. There was also an extreme amount of repetition. We heard a 100 times or more of how cold and nasty it was in Vermont. Then, there was the redundant information about the foundation holes. Why didn't some of this get edited? The romance between Hannah and Sean was unexciting and barely there. We were told who the murderer was before the end and the actual ending was somewhat dramtic as opposed to the entire rest of the novel. It was a big relief to be done reading this book.

[Darcy Goodall · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked this up in VV it was really smelling like 2 star but, I was pleasantly surprised with the story probably would’ve been a 4 star but the ending was lack luster.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Black Falls, Vermont -- published 2009

Hannah Shay is co-owner of a cafe and also studying to pass the bar exam. Firefighter Sean Cameron is the youngest of 3 brothers. Assassins murdered their father. Both assassins are dead but no one knows who hired them or why. That's the mystery to this story, although there's more romantic entanglements than suspense involved.

I prefer the opposite of what this book provided. I like more mystery and less romance in my romantic suspense stories but I've learned that I usually can't tell which way the genre is going until I get into it. This story contains a lot of dialogue about what happened in the last book. I didn't read the previous one but didn't feel I needed to with all the background provided. There's a bunch of characters in this book. I understand why - - so they can become the main characters in future stories - - but a list of who's who would have made the reading easier. Being from Texas, I liked reading about all the ice and snow.

[Dara · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is definitely not a stand alone book. I feel like I'm missing a lot and it's distracting from enjoying the book. I'll have to check out Cold Pursuit from the library to figure out what is going on in Cold River. You really need to start at the beginning with this book. It is book 2 in the new Black Falls series. Most books in a series (if you start somewhere other than book one) make sense but not this one. I like her books but this one is hard to read. I need to write a list down to figure out who's who and where they relate in the mystery. I'll be glad to be done with this book. I may not continue the series, but I want to find out more about Grit, so I may stay with it, but it will be a toss up.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustrating. I found it hard to follow. I kept backing up and re-reading, thinking I must have missed something. Nope, the character actions and dialogue we just constantly vague and obscure. Annoying.

[Zana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt the first book in this series captured my interest much more and since there was so much time in between reading them I was confused for some parts of it but it was nice to learn more about the characters and I did enjoy it.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one went a bit slow for me. Too much re-hashing of the plot in the first book of the series. Didn’t get revved up until the end.

[Barbara L. Root · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing very muddled AND repetitive! Read the whole book to get to the reasons for the first 2 killings but was never told! Feel cheated- definite waste of time!

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay read.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this one 3.5 stars. There are things I really liked in it and a couple things I wish were different. I loved that, as the second book of the trilogy, this book continued the overarching theme of the assassins, while seamlessly shifting the focus from Jo and Elijah to Hannah and Sean. The surrounding characters are all the same as we met/saw in the first book and they are all equally involved in the story so it doesn't feel jarring at all to suddenly have the focus on Hannah and Sean. That being said, I do wish she had spent a little more time on those two. While the shift in the suspense storyline was smooth, I felt like the relationship was less so. They both admit (to themselves) and attraction for the other from the start, even though they try (especially Hannah) to deny/fight it. When they finally give in, it just felt too sudden to me, especially if you look at how few days actually pass over the telling of the story.

Which brings us to another thing I really like about Neggers' writing. Even though not a lot of time passes, she tells the story with such precision and intensity, that it feels like it's lasted longer (as real like often does when you are trying to get through a stressful situation!). The other thing I didn't care for in this book was that I thought it was a little repetitive on events that happened in the previous book. I get that she wants readers to be able to read this as a standalone, but even after explaining something that we had seen in book 1, I felt like a couple of things were explained or retold more than once (maybe different characters or repeating with a new detail or something?). It just seemed unusual for Neggers and unnecessary for the understanding.

All that being said, I'm looking forward to sinking into Book 3 and seeing where the story leads next.

[Elle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first book in the series was okay enough to try the second, but I won’t be reading the third. The Cameron family is downright sanctimonious. Elijah is tolerable, but I don’t care for the rest of them at all.

The entire premise of this book is paper thin. Bowie is a suspect because he grew up on the wrong side of town? He was literally only guilty of protecting Hannah and that made him the #1 suspect? And it made no sense why he had to go to jail for the bar fight when the other men started it and even attacked Hannah. Like Vivian said, if he had been a Cameron he wouldn’t have been charged. The whole town was afraid of him because he beat up some verbally and physically hostile loser? I honestly wished Hannah would have ended up with Bowie. There was no chemistry between her and Sean, and he was arrogant.

On Cold Pursuit I read a review that mentioned how characters traipse up and down the mountain with little to no time passing, yet it’s supposedly super dangerous. The same thing happened in Cold River, just not as frequently. Also, Sean literally followed Hannah everywhere, it was so annoying.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I really didn't like about this book is that all the characters kind of blended in together - no one had a specific voice. All the characters had the same voice and I had a hard time telling who was speaking apart. It also blended in a bit too much with the previous book's characters, which was really annoying.

The only saving grace for this book was the plot. It was a great story line with some unexpected turns, if you weren't looking for them. I kept wondering what the Whittakers had to do with the story and figured at the beginning of this book that they had to be connected to the network of killers if they kept popping up like that. I'm glad to have found out I was right about that.

Even though this plot was interesting, I'm not sure I want to continue with the series. That same voice for all the characters is very monotonous and can make the book drag on.

[Jeannine Wickliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great continuation from the first book of this series. It continues the search for the mastermind behind a assassin for hire enterprise that seems to be in Black falls. Sean Cameron has returned with the intentions of finding who killed his father and if they are still in the area. Hannah Shay has finally proved that she is more then just her mother's daughter, She is part owner in Three These two are headed for a confrontation because one of her friends is being set up and she will prove him innocent. Can the sparks flying between Hannah and Sean grow or will whats happening, and his life in California get in the way? Will finding the killer or the person behind the assassin end the reign of terror?

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s different, having the murder already happen. I like Hannah and Sean’s relationship. I didn’t read the first book so I thought some stuff was weird. When they were talking about an Ambassador and the president and his son, that was confusing as hell and didn’t feel like it fit with the story so I assume it ties in with the first book. I feel like the last few chapters weren’t needed and could have been summed up shorter, just dragged a bit. But I can see how this can be a series about the town with all the characters and their own stories.

[Momma-Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally when I began to read this second book in the trilogy I was between dnf and maybe 3 stars if I continued reading it. It was so repetitive, had drawn out details and description that it was putting me to sleep. But I forged on and finally I don't regret it. I'm not big on romance stories and the intrigue really only began after halfway through, but I realized the effort Neggers put in to build the characters in this small town USA in northern Vermont. And I respect that. The ending was happy and heartwarming.

[Tameka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it funny that no one found fault with Shay and her being from the other side of the tracks wasn't a problem but the for the guy it was.

Shay was a definite straight shooter and got down to the point. I felt sorry for Rose altough it was her fault for dating the buttwipe who pulled that dirty little stunt talking trash about her and Shay.

There were so many plots and mysteries going on in the book ot kept me on my toes.

[Terri Borkgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second book in the black Falls Novel series by Carla Neggers. The youngest brother Sean Cameron and Hannah Shay fall in love as they continue to work in finding the one who had killed Drew Cameron. As she is falling in love with Sean she struggles with her continuing trusting her friend Bowie O'Rourke a troubled and independent stonemason / handyman that has been close to her father Thomas Shay. The hired killers is still out there in Black Falls and time is running out for finding them.

[Judith Sherrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold River

An interesting sequel to a first book filled with killers, feds, and ordinary people that ate caught in the upheaval of someone's secret about a group of assassins yet to be discovered. On to book three!

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of activity in this book. Leaps of logic, jumping to conclusions, and circling back to the same details over and over. Maybe her writing got better after more books, because I can't see this winning any awards.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing ok, but plot is a lot of roiling emotions about characters falling for each other along with a pretty thin plot. (I don't file my books by categories, so maybe this is a romance?) In any case, not much to hold my interest.

[Steve Ring · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was tedious. I confess I started skimming a little. Also, I felt the ending was inconclusive as to why the murderer did what he did. Very frustrating. The characters were well developed, but perhaps there were too many of them. Generally, this book was not worth the time.

[Nadine Bourgault · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was good, but I did not realize it was part of a series. I was confused at times regarding the characters and what had transpired in the previous book. there was really no synopsis of the story, which would have been helpful.

[Danm · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review for the first installment. You might love it.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off slow and confusing. Intriguing as the plot moves along.

[Sandy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started off slow, kept going back to what happened in the first book. About half-way through the book, the plot did pick up.