Resorts Books

This is a good guide to have if you want to be pampered. It will consistently send you toward the best accommodations and resorts (spas too) that America has to offer. The reviews are not done by professional, independent evaluators, but rather by a consensus of the common populace (8,000) who have gone to experience and rate the hotels, resorts and spa..

The writing in the Zagat guide is a bit bland and can be uninspiring. Take the Inn of the Anasazi (NM), they write, "This first rate adobe inn with a great location is a magical experiences, mixing Southern Charm with high-end-class." Where as the "Mobil Travel Guide: America's Best Hotel and Restaurants" paints a picture for you when you read about a property: "The Anasazi Inn is mesmerizing, with timber ceilings, creamy sandstone walls , cactus in terr-cotta pots and New Mexican art.".

The indexes are a very helpful (All-Inclusive Price, B&B, Beach Settings, Destinations Spas etc.) but the one index that is missing is "Bargains". You will find the average per night fare costing $200 - $400 per night. It should be stated that Zagat started as a patrician's guide to restaurants. But not here, for you will be disappointed to find that this guide had no reviews of the restaurants that are found in the hotel and resorts

However, I have used the guide various times to search out the "Top" places to stay in the U.S. and I am always pleased with the recommendations. So, if you travel a lot, and have the money to get the best you will be well served by this guide.

The story has very simple plot and people loved the chilling tale of shark eating men. And the film is also a huge success. But all this is because people are so naive and not very literate, I'm afraid. The whole story's foundation is based on a really shaky foundation: although there were incidents of people being eaten by shark, the local police and local newspaper did not want to announce the incident for fearing of unfavorable consequences, such as a damaging real estate market. This is both unbelievable and suspiciously similar to the plot in An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. This really looks so much like copying the idea of Henrik Ibsen's popular play more than 100 years ago, An Enemy of the People.

This shaky foundation really cannot stand any questioning. Then, the story becomes unbelievable. Right? Wrong, if people chose to believe it, what can you do about it? The masses of people are not very literate, and are not very demanding. All writers should be grateful for this. Especially for writers like Peter Benchley.

I bought this for my husband and he loved it! He hadn't read it in many years and was so glad to reread it--he agrees that it is much better than then movie (but the movie is also a great classic).

Did Peter forget that his story is about a twenty some odd foot White Shark preying on human beings to sustain itself? I think he did, because the story he tells is about as far away from the assumed premise as you can get. If you want to know the sex life and crime life of the Amity locals, then this is your lucky book. If you want the story of the White shark, Spielberg's film is your ticket.

Benchley can't tell his own story. He was commissioned to pen the tale before the story was ever written. Bad! Because Benchley can't grasp his story premise enough to tell it. Why? With such a brilliant story line he could have tap-danced his way to literary legendhood; instead, he shamed himself. Too bad, it could have been such a classic book.

JAWS

(Comments based on the 1975 Bantam edition)

One of my ongoing interests is cryptozoology, and that led me to take another look at this novel and ask how well it stood the test of time.

Jaws is not technically a cryptozoological novel, featuring as it does a known rather than an unknown species. However, it certainly set the tone, and arguably created the market, for all the marine zoological and cryptozoological thrillers written since, from two authors' novels about Carcharadon megalodon (a species which is referenced in Jaws) to the most recent example, Freedman's Natural Selection.

On going back and re-reading Jaws after several years, several positive things stand out. One is that Benchley did his homework on sharks and shark fishing, which is always good. A note for readers new to Jaws is that the ichthyologist character, Matt Hooper, describes Megalodon as the direct ancestor, maybe even the same species, as the great white and assigns it a length of 80-100 feet. Both notions have largely been discarded, but were current when Benchley wrote the novel.

Another way the novel starts off right is that Benchley has gotten the setting down. The reader has no trouble picturing Amity and the economic and social currents flowing through the town.

Benchley handles the plot very well most of the time, starting off with a shark attack and segueing neatly into the viewpoint of his chief (no pun intended) human protagonist, Police Chief Martin Brody. As the novel unfolds, we get more shark attacks, more human conflict and confusion, and finally a very suspenseful hunt and confrontation at the end.

A major character, of course, is the shark. The animal is huge, but not unrealistically so: verified catch records top out at 20-21 feet, and the best "top end" information we have is that bites on a whale carcass off Australia, described by a qualified scientific authority, indicated a 25-foot shark. This shark's penchant for hanging around Amity even as water conditions and food supply change is unexplained: as Hooper says repeatedly, though, sharks are unpredictable, and we really don't know why they do a lot of things they do.

While the 20-foot size is believable, there is something very odd about this shark. It's extremely clever in its hunting strategy, showing cunning that might be compared to a mammalian carnivore like an orca, and shark fisherman Quint agrees reluctantly that this animal is unlike any shark he's hunted - it doesn't "play by the rules." No attempt is made to explain this unusual level of brainpower.

As for human characters, two of Benchley's four most important people are compelling. Brody is thoroughly believable, a decent guy trying to fight his way through an ever-increasing host of problems. Quint is less developed, but he's all the better for that: he is, in a sense, a human shark, a calculating predator who knows his own interests and looks out for them. His response to a question about his lack of a wife - "never saw the need for one" - is classic.

Hooper never comes alive in the book the way he did in Richard Dreyfuss' portrayal in the film version of this novel, and the chief's wife Ellen isn't as sympathetic as she should be. Benchley's writing gets clumsy when Ellen is the featured character. Her over-described preparations for an affair and her dropped-on-the-page epiphany about how good her life is are two examples.

The two subplots, the Ellen-Hooper affair and the mayor's trouble with his criminal partners, don't really contribute to the story: the main events would likely have unfolded the same way if they had not existed. Steven Spielberg (and the several screenwriters who came and went in the course of the Jaws film project) realized this and dropped them both from the screenplay, leaving a taut, lean suspense film which (in this writer's opinion) remains one of Speilberg's best directing efforts.

Despite a few miscues, Jaws remains a compelling read, a well-structured novel whose plot rarely bogs down. In the subgenre it started, the marine creature thriller, it's still the top fish on the block.

They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
Them says Jaw is not HOROR makes Clib a sad toy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
they sae jabs is nyo HORROR makes Clinr a sad noy
They say JAWS is not horror makes Clint a sad doy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad foy
they say jaws is not horor makes cLINT a sad goy they SAY jaes is not
horror makes clint a sad boy THEY SAY JAWS IS NOT HORROR MAKES CLINT A SAD BOY they say jaws is not horror makes clint a sad boy they
say Jaws is not horror makes CLINT a sad boy they say jaws is not horror
makes cklint a aad soy they say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is noy Torror macks Blint a das boy
They say Jaws is not Horror makes Clint a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy
htes say Jwsa is not HOROR makes Clib a sad boy
They say Jaws is not HORROR makes Clint a sad boy

I picked this up at a used book store, knowing nothing about it except what the cover told me. Having grown up on the edge of the Catskills, having had some experience in my home town with "summer people from the city", and being an avid reader of Chaim Potok, Faye Kellerman and Harry Kemelman, I felt this book about a small Orthodox Jewish community that moves upstate together from NYC every summer was "chosen" for me. I loved it absolutely. Rich story, full of complicated characters, details of life in a traditional society, and insight into the human spirit. Reminds me of the best of my summer reading when I was a kid--getting utterly lost in the lives of the fictional characters, and never wanting the story to end. A reviewer from Newsday called Allegra Goodman a "young Mozart of Jewish fiction". How apt.

This book was a waste of my life. I was forced to read it becuase of my englih class and I hated every second of it. Nothing interesting happened. It just seemed to go on and on with it's rambling and never end.

This is a tight, sociological and psychological novel about a community of Orthodox Jews; although she follows many intersecting characters, this is primarily the story of a young, married woman with five children who wants to express her personality apart from being a homemaker while staying within the community. The theme is reflected in the development of some of the children. It's moving and it moves!

The first time I tried to read this book, I put it down after about 70 pages. Nothing was happening! Then I picked it up again and was mesmerized. Allegra Goodman tells this story through the eyes of multiple characters -- I can't even count how many points of view she uses -- and it works, in a quiet, seamless way. She makes it look easy to keep track of that many characters and have them all work together. This is a vast novel that suggests a great depth. It is a deeply spiritual novel without being "religious."

I first read this book a few years ago and have since re-read it, recommended it, and given it to many people. The setting, an orthodox Jewish family in the Catskills one summer in the 1970's, does not sound very promising as a popular reading book, but of course that's the joy of really great writing. And Allegra Goodman is definitely a great writer: funny, insightful, casually profound. I've enjoyed everything I've read by her, beginning with a short story I found in a collection of Great Stories by Jewish Writers. Totally unknown to me and up next to works by Singer and other icons, her story in the collection was easily the best, in my opinion. I'm not Jewish, I might add, nor particularly interested in "the varieties of religious experience," but then she doesn't write about religion per se. Her characters are just very interesting people. That said, the culture her characters inhabit is fascinating and entirely accessible. I used to teach Comparative Literature at the college level, and I would definitely recommend this book to teachers, and students, as well as anyone else who has an imagination and knows good writing when they see it.

This is the first Little book I have read. It was confusing,lacked any charecter developement, and the farther I read in the book, the more I felt he was pulling ideas out with no forethought, or organization. It was un original as well. It was like a very bad version of Stephan King's great classic,The Shining.
I will give this author another chance though

Bentley Little is not the best American horror writer, but he's one of the most prolific and definitely one of the most entertaining. I've read a lot of his books and they tend to be a bit hit-or-miss with me, not due to any lack of talent on his end but more to do with my personal tastes. Books like The Burning and The Return were relative duds for me, and it's probably not a coincidence that in those books, multiple characters who start out with no apparent connection to one another are the primary protagonists. That type of characterization is more of a Stephen King specialty (think The Stand, The Mist, etc), and as much as I like King too, I don't care for that plot type even when he does it. So it's just a personal preference for me. Bentley Little, for me, is at his best when he focuses primarily on one character, family, or connected grouping of characters, and takes an everyday, mundane situation like going on a family vacation and turns it into something bizarre and nightmarish, which is what he does here.

I liked Lowell Thurman, the main character, right off the bat. He's a grocery store manager who wants to get as far away from his California hometown as possible on the weekend of his high school's 20-year reunion, so he packs up his wife and three sons and heads for the Arizona desert, to The Reata, an isolated resort known for catering to the rich and famous during the peak season but bringing prices down to rock bottom for the 'regular' people during the off season. It seems like a steal at first, until something grabs Lowell's leg in the lap pool and his son sees a vision of a body that no one else does, and the friendly hotel employees soon prove not to be so friendly after all. It's Lowell's youngest son, a sensitive who wants to investigate all things paranormal when he grows up, who discovers the key to saving them all from the horrific end that awaits them.

I really enjoyed this one and recommend it to any horror fan, although I will say that I didn't care for the ending and thought it a little uncharacteristic of Little. It was a very entertaining read, though.

I am a fan of Bentley Little, I enjoy his satirical views of the most mundane organizations, such as HOAs, super discount stores, vacation resorts, etc... This book did not disappoint in more of his tongue in cheek satire. It was creepy and gory enough for the the horror fan in me and well written enough for the reader in me. I will not go into a synopsis of the story since it has been well written by other reviewers but I will add that the first part of the story did seem to have more thought and time put into the writing, the second half of the book, while enjoyable and a great thrill ride, did seem to be written hurriedly and the ending seemed rushed. I would have liked to have seen a few of the subplots hashed out a bit more but all in all this was a great read for a day on the beach or a long flight.

This is an exciting, wild, face-paced ride with non-stop suspense, jolts and shocks.
This resort is a place you don't want to visit, but a nightmare you'd love to unravel.

--Joseph McGee, author of In the Wake of the Night, Phil's Place and Darkness Won't Rest: Phils Place II

In this very slow drawn out book, Little introduces us to his main characters, the Lowell Thurman family, mom, dad and three boys. Deciding they could afford the winter rates at the high end Reata Resort of Arizona, they pack the family off for a week of fun in the sun. Strange encounters and less then family atmosphere makes the Thurman's and other guest's question what is truly going on here.

The hotel has a strange mind mend on those staying there, they forget, they hallucinate, they become highly sexual, they become barbaric. But leave it to a 13 year old boy to find the answer and save the day.

By the end of this really horrible book I was repulsed. For a thriller it was even further out there than most. Too many barbaric scenes that had no point; and in turn made this book a joke. No need to read this author again.

This review refers to the audio CD version:
I am a voracious listener when it comes to romantic and fantasy literature on audio. It doesn't happen to me very often that I will stop a book at the beginning and put it away, but that's what happened with this one. The author is the reader, and Brilliance should have talked her out of it. It is obvious that she does not have the talent for acting the voices as a trained voice actor would do. This makes the reading painful, at least to me. She didn't do any characterizations that help the listener distinguish the characters in the story, and her voice inflection was very flat. I was almost finished with the first CD and still couldn't figure out who was who and what was going on. I gave up at that point and will donate the book to the local library with hopes that someone else will have more staying power than I do. Authors should definitely let the professionals read their books and stick to writing them!

It's only happened a few times before, but I actually put this book down just before finishing it. The plot couldn't have been thinner, with inaccurate stereotypes filling page after page, and the elementary dialogue sounded like it had been written by a child. I'm sorry I wasted the time. A truly silly book.

I have now read all but one of this authors books, and they are all fantastic. I wish there were more because I'm really going to miss them. I'll be watching for her next books.

What a wonderful story. Ms. Frank has a fantastic style of story telling and everytime I finish one of her books, I want to plan a trip to the Low Country. Her books are always rewarding and rich with details - like drinking Co-Cola only from a glass bottle. And her heroines are always strong women who just don't know it yet. I want to be a character in one of her novels!!

I always look forward to reading Dorothea Benton Frank when I'm on vacation in the low country of South Carolina. While Pawleys Island is a good enough beach book, overall, I think it was mediocre.

Pawleys Island is character-driven and the plot was rather trite. Frank's characters were actually caricatures--exaggerated representations of southern individuals. Abigail Thurmond gave up her law practice after two personal tragedies, and now spends her days on Pawleys Island playing golf, tennis and socializing with Huey Valentine. Valentine is a gay art gallery owner (think Nathan Lane) whose family owns a plantation on Pawleys. Rebecca Simms shows up on Pawleys, trying to sell some of her artwork to Valentine. Of course her work is awesome, even though she doesn't appear to be trained and has never sold anything before. Her husband, Nat Simms, is perhaps one of the most evil, self-centered but stupid characters that ever appeared in a book. Valentine discovers that Rebecca has fled to Pawleys Island after her husband gets custody of their kids and their Charleston house when they separated. Valentine and Thurmond take it upon themselves to stand up for Rebecca and win back her children and her home. How this plays out is totally predictable and unbelievable.

One of the best things about Pawleys Island is that Frank has a true love of the South Carolina low country that shines through in her books. This is true of Pawleys Island and is one feature that saves this book.

Pawleys Island isn't Frank's best effort. But if you're looking for something fluffy while on vacation, it's not too bad.

Chick lit fans: I think you will enjoy this fun, entertaining book! The comic moments had me laughing out loud, and the love scenes felt very real and passionate as well. I could empathize with the main character's feelings of uncertain self-esteem, and the author did a fantastic job of making you both like and root for Lydia. I also felt that Liam had the right amount of complexity to his character.

Mariska Hargitay did an excellent job reading this book! She read this book as convincingly as a seasoned audiobook narrator, and each of the characters had a unique, specific voice (which some audiobook narrators cannot completely pull off). The Irish brogue that she used with Liam and the Russian accents she used with some of the other characters also seemed authentic to my ears.

I would classify this book as a "beach read": enjoyable, yet a bit lightweight, which is exactly what I was looking for. If you are a fan of Janet Evanovich's fiction (especially her non-Stephanie Plum books), as I am, then you will probably enjoy this book. (I absolutely love Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, too, but I just wanted to warn you that THE DOMINANT BLONDE is more like Janet's non-series fiction than her series books.)

I read four of this author's books in a row and for the most part I liked them all and probably would recommend them to other readers of chick-lit. Her stories are engaging and the writing intelligent. So why only three stars? Hard to explain. The first 3/4 of her books are wonderful but the endings tend to leave me wanting to strangle someone. Usually the friends and family of the main character. With people like that in your life, who needs enemies?! On the one hand that's great because that means I became emotionally involved in the story while I was reading it, but on the other hand it leaves me a bit frustrated once the story is finished that the less obvious "bad guys" don't quite get what I feel is their just rewards in the end.

In this particular book, I had a very distinct reaction to the first half vs. the second half. At first I felt like I was watching one of those late night guilty pleasure black and white movies that I sometimes enjoy. But towards the end I felt just a little bit like I was watching a Rocky & Bullwinkle vs. Boris & Natasha cartoon which I wasn't as thrilled about. The male lead I found to be interesting and I liked him despite any flaws. The female lead I found to be a tad naive for her age and in one instance down right dim-witted. My interpretation of the title led me to believe I'd see the female lead grow a bit more backbone than she actually ended up doing. Yes, she does adjust her living circumstances somewhat for the better but I felt she also needed to adjust her working circumstances to get out from under what was really holding her back in life.

Bottom line. Read it. It's a fun romp. Whether you get it from the library for a day's entertainment or whether you buy if for your keeper collection is going to be up to the taste of the individual.

The title and front cover kind of decieves the reader into thinking it's a different kind of book then what it actually is. I don't really see how the title tied in with the plot of the book. I wouldn't really call this a complete chick-lit book, although chick-lit has expanded into different areas other than a Bridget Jones type of story lately. "The Dominant Blonde" is more of a thriller/mystery type of novel. It kind of reminded me of some of Nora Roberts thriller type of books that I've read. The story is okay but I had a really hard time getting into the book. It took me about three weeks to finish which is really unusual because I usually read a book in less than a week. I even considered putting it away and starting a new book but I decided to push through and finish it. There just wasn't anything special about the story, I'm already kind of forgetting the storyline and it hasn't been that long since I read the book. The storyline is predictable, I knew what was going to happen before it happened. The characters aren't that memorable either and I didn't find myself rooting for any of them at all. It was just a disappointing book.

This book is a bit of a disappointment. The Dominant Blonde starts off strong, and Kwitney has an undoutedly strong voice, which is why it's a little disappointing to see her do so little with it.

The plot is realtively fresh and original and, though Lydia is a bit of a ditsy blonde you can see Kwitney trying to give her some depth. That's just the problem. As with all the other characterizations in this book you can see Kwitney laboring to get her ideas across. This is no less true with the hero, Liam, whose Irish roots feel as poorly executed as they are contrived. Ultimately, the characters in this book come off as somewhat cliched stereotypes masquerading as originals.

The pace of the book is problematic as well, by the middle of the book I saw where things were going and I just wished the plot would get there already so it could be over. The middle bit does have some enjoyable- albeit somewhat unrealistic- bits. The ending is flat and a bit of a nonevent.

Overall I'd say this was good for a light, quick read, but only if you've exhausted other avenues first.

I really enjoyed the book during the begining and middle sections but was left dissapointed with the ending. The story is ver built up and then just when you think it is all going to be worth it you are left with nothing. My advice: read up to the last few chapters and the create your own ending.

BUY THIS BOOK!
I love the way she writes it is the grown woamn in me that read Judy Blume non stop that appreciates this effort the most!

if you read this Gally it is me Rebecca ;-)

inartfully written and dissappointing all the way through. An uninspired, and even unfunny, attempt to parody JD sallinger meets a Mccally Cullcand movie. There is so much better stuff out there to read. How does stuff like this get published?

The story is unclimactic - it doesn't grow and only leads to a predictable ending. The viewpoint from the 12 year old girl is not convincing and is trite. The whole story was stale.

The sun is sweltering. Sweat drips from your every pore and your muscles ache from heat exhaustion. Nothing sounds more refreshing than a cool glass of ice water.

Similarly, the school year drags on. It is past the middle of the last quarter of the year, and exams and papers have piled up. And right now, nothing could be more enjoyable and refreshing than reading Galaxy Craze's By the Shore.

What makes By the Shore so enjoyable is not the writing, although it is good, and not the humor, although it is funny, but the story line, which is a dead-on portrayal of the life of a 12-year-old girl.

May lives with her mother, Lucy, and her younger brother, Eden, in a boarding school-turned-bed and breakfast in rural England. Lucy is distracted from motherhood by the men and friends in her life. Eden is too busy to notice because he lives in a make-believe world of fairies and elves. But May wants some attention from her mom.

May tells one friend that her parents are still married, but that her father lives in the city. She tries to be popular by buying new clothes and hair barrettes with furry fishes on them.

When an eligible bachelor author comes to stay in the bed and breakfast, lives are turned upside-down in a romance too sweet to be seen through any but the eyes of a child.

Rufus comes to Lucy's bed and breakfast to work on the book he is translating. His on-again, off-again girlfriend, Patricia, makes many visits because she is jealous that Lucy is seducing Rufus. Patricia is right to be worried, as she is soon out of the picture. May's father enters the scene and May watches as her parents quickly rekindle, then extinguish any romance that might have been left between them.

Fortunately, Rufus remains.

Amidst all the turmoil of her mother's love life, May tries to find her place at school and in her family. Patricia lies to the popular girls at May's school and says May knows the famous musician Jet Jones, and that he has even kissed her. Suddenly May finds herself invited to the most exclusive birthday party of year, but leaves her best friends behind in the process.

Not surprisingly, May discovers that popular girls are not all they seem, childhood fantasies about parents should remain fantasies and, most importantly, her father is a jerk.

As By the Shore unravels, what's left is two people in love, a family full of surprises and two friends who love each other enough to remain friends.

Aside from a glass of ice water, what could be more refreshing than that?

First - I was a bit surprised to find that By the Shore is currently rated at only three stars, as I enjoyed it so much and contemplated giving it a 5 star rating again, four years after my first reading. Then I took a look at the 1 star ratings and saw that a group of mean children (or jealous unpublished non-authors) had conducted a "one star" smear campaign against Ms. Craze. Don't let this sway you from reading By the Shore. The book is moving and thought provoking. Its strength is in its subtleties. I found myself reflecting on my childhood as I read, and was drawn back to memories that had escaped me for years. I look forward to this new author's next effort.

I picked this up when I had some time to kill on a hot summer afternoon and was pleasantly surprised. It exceeded my expectations which is not saying a lot, but it was still a satisfying read. Like an episode of Murder, She Wrote with a younger sleuth at the center of the story, it was a perfect book for reading outside in the shade. It took me longer than anticipated to finish it since it dragged a fair bit, but was still worth the effort, especially since it had a quite thrilling climax, considering much of what came before was far from a page-turner. I was mostly interested in reading this because of the author's relationship to Cosmopolitan magazine, and it proved to be a fun diversion, much like the magazine itself. I wouldn't be opposed to reading another book in this series, as the author has a fun writing style and the narrator is charming and relatable.

The premise of this book is good, but the writing style is choppy and the characters are unappealing. Despite Bailey saying she's not ready for a relationship she seems desperate to jump into bed with the detective and her ex-boyfriend. And for a journalist, her questioning definitely lacks finesse. The characters aren't portrayed in a sympathetic manner so it's hard to care who killed the victims or that the spa owner's business is being destroyed by the murders. In the hands of a better writer, this could have been a great story.

Kate White, the author of "A Body to Die For," has a day job. She is editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan the best selling women's magazine in the world. On her website, Editor-in-Chief White has this to say about writing: "Cosmo's the largest magazine in the world and we don't think of it as a starting point for writers. You need to have experience writing for smaller publications and gradually work your way up."

Now, what would Editor-in-Chief White say to someone who submitted a piece to Cosmo that started off with this leaden clunker, an all but classic "had-I-but-known"?

"When I think back on everything terrible that happened that autumn--the murders, the grim discovery I made, the danger I found myself in--I realize I probably could have avoided all of it if my love life hadn't been so sucky." [Page 1 of the paperback edition]

There is a kind of twisted genius in that opening sentence. Who, while wincing at the consecutive dull thuds of "the grim discovery I made" and "the danger I found myself in," would ever anticipate the approaching awfulness of "if my love life hadn't been so sucky"?

And what would Editor White say--on the vastly unlikely chance that she continued to read beyond that initial catastrophe--about a writer who dropped one of the hoariest, most moss-bearded mystery story clichés into the middle of her story?

"Shouldn't we tell this to the police?" Danny asked eagerly. "This could help them stop focusing on [another character]."
Not yet. There's not enough evidence, and they'd only scoff at my little theory. Besides, Beck [the lead investigating officer] would be pissed off that I was butting in. Let me pursue it on my own for a bit." [Page 241]

Bad as that is, it's easily matched by a scene in which the intrepid heroine, Bailey Weggins, is assaulted, very likely with homicidal intent, by a method virtually identical to that by which the first victim (whose dead body said intrepid heroine had discovered) was slain. Does Bailey scream bloody murder? Does she call the cops? Does she leap promptly out of harm's way? Does she take any rational measure to protect herself? Why, bless you, no, of course not. Bailey says, "It's clear I've pushed someone's buttons, but I promise I'll be more careful." [Page 261] Yeah, that'll do it!

The old hard-boiled detective stories established a tradition of the shamus cracking wise. This is no hard-boiled story, but mystery writers and readers are still attracted to the notion. Here is author White struggling to make Bailey crack wise: "I was up by seven-thirty Friday morning, after a shortage of REM sleep so severe that it would have been illegal for me to operate heavy machinery." [Page 266] As wisecracks go, that tin-eared passage makes Bailey pretty feeble competition for Spade and Marlowe.

Author White is undoubtedly game, and clearly there's no cliché she doesn't love. Here's another one. A new dead body has just been found. The police have come. Bailey doesn't talk to the cops; she ruminates.

I should have spoken up. Yes, I'd wanted to protect Danny's business, and that was the main reason I hadn't come clean to Beck ..., but I had also been caught up in playing Nancy Drew and the Cedar Inn Corpse. Because of my pride and my ego, I was partly responsible for [her] death. [Page 312]

At last, and I fear inevitably, we come to the cliché of clichés. Bailey is talking to Cordelia, a masseuse at the spa which has been the scene of multiple murders.

"I think [another employee] did those things to you during the wrap," [Cordelia] said.
"Think?"
"I mean I'm almost positive he did...."
"Okay, well, take me through it, then."
"I can't right this second. But I thought if you wanted to meet me in a little while, maybe around seven, I could explain everything I found out."
I didn't like Cordelia much, and she'd never seemed to like me.... But I said yes, I would see her. I needed to learn what she was up to. She said she was staying at a friend's place and gave me directions. [Page 329]

Now I ask you, is there any mystery reader in the world who thinks those directions to a friend's place are going to lead anywhere but to trouble?

The mystery story genre, by and large, does not aspire to the status of high literature. Its sub-category, the cozy mystery, aims lower still, and the sub-sub-category containing all those female, part-time sleuths who are employed in glamorous New York jobs, aims lowest of all. Nevertheless, there are standards to be upheld, however humble and lowly they might be. And this lazily-conceived, slovenly written, over-long, hackneyed, passionless, humorless, improbably plotted, by-the-numbers, job-lot of cloth-eared verbiage huddled under the wholly uninspired title of "A Body to Die For" fails on every point.

This book is a waste of time that contrives to sink almost to the level of some Dan Brown-like effusion hag-ridden with background music from Andrea Bocelli. Self-respecting mystery fans, flee from this book! And if you see someone possessed by it, cry Beware! Beware! / his flashing eyes! his floating hair! / weave a circle round him thrice, / and close your eyes with holy dread!

One star.

(And yes, you bet your sweet patootie I'm holding Editor-in-Chief White to a higher standard than I'd apply to some actual writer ernestly attempting to tell a story to the best of his or her ability. Go read Christie or Sayers or Doyle or Hammett or Spillane, or about crime-solving cats or dabbling homemakers or reformed vampires or anything or anybody else.)

When her friend Danny invites freelance magazine writer Bailey Weggins to spend some time at his spa in the Berkshires, Bailey can't accept fast enough, as she's coming off a pretty hectic autumn in Manhattan. She arrives and can't wait to get a massage, which she thoroughly needs. However, during the massage she took off the Rolex she'd inherited from her father. She'd been wearing it since he passed away and she is very anxious about it. She wants it back and she wants it now.

But the massage room is closed for the evening and Piper the masseuse has gone to town. When Piper returns, she and Bailey head to the massage room to look for the Rolex. But it's not the missing watch that is the first thing to catch their eyes when the open the door, it's the body wrapped in silver Mylar that is the real attention getter.

Naturally Danny wants Bailey to help solve the crime and, of course, Bailey agrees. Then another body turns up. Plus, our killer naturally doesn't want Bailey, or anybody for that matter, to solve the case. Speaking of case solving, the local detective working it is a guy named Jeffrey Beck, who is, to say the least, a hunk. Is Bailey interested? What do you think?

This is a very good mystery with good characters and plenty of red herrings, however sometimes I felt Bailey's thoughts were perhaps a little too convoluted, however that didn't keep me from enjoying the mystery which I finished in one sitting.

Reviewed by Sara Hackett, who just adore's her husband Jack Priest's books Ragged Man, Gecko & Night Witch.

This book is about a female mystery writer ("true crimes") who, shock!, stumbles upon a true crime. It had good elements of mystery in it, with enough plausible suspects that it kept me guessing until I figured it out about 2 chapters before Baily W. did.

Fun to read, sweet, and not too deep, it was a good, not great, book.

I'd be very surprised if this book wasn't really written by a man. It started out okay but went quickly downhill. The characters are unbelievable. There doesn't seem to be anything that Jordan can't do. And Gillian comes across as spineless. A complete waste of time and money.

I couldn't disagree more that the excessive alcohol abuse was a cautionary comparison to "The Great Gatsby." Actually, I thought the author flattered herself by even mentioning Fitzgerald. This effort is pedestrian.

I don't see where characters "live and breathe" on the page: I don't see fictional characters like these breathing in real life! Multitalented is one thing, fantastical egotrip is another.

I don't get it. I read this book on reccommendation from someone else who read "Thin Fire" and liked it. That one was out of print, so I got this one instead. I'm sorry I did. I think its too flowery, too dramatic and too unbelievable to be fiction without being labeled "fantasy". Her other books might be good, but this one isn't up to par.

It started out ok, but soon became awkward, stilted, and unbelievable. Let me count the ways: 1. They're drinking on every page. If I had that much to drink, I'd be impaired by noon every day and drunk by suppertime. 2. The therapy talk is so stilted and boring. Do people REALLY talk that way? 3. Gee, it's odd that 2 rich, privileged-beyond-belief people who both have severe traumas in their pasts, meet and overcome these traumas in what -- 5 days? 4. Ooooh, Jordan: best and most incredibly intuitive massage therapist in the whole world; best and most incredibly intuitive non-professional therapist in the world; incredibly patient golf teacher; incredible bartender; incredible lover ("you can just look at her and know she's a great lover"); oh, and let's not forget, incredible par-breaking golfer on championship courses: whatta gal! Do you think she's the author's wish fulfillment (or is that just more bad therapy talk?) 5. Jordan was playing great golf until her playing partner made her mad. Then, livid with rage, she played even better, driving the ball 320 yds (!!!) and was so blinded by rage that she "didn't remember" the round afterwards.

I can see why anyone who thought that "First Resort" was about golf would be bitterly disappointed. This is not a book about golf; that's merely the setting. Rather, it is a story about relationships, friendship and healing.

I would agree with some of the former reviewers that say, "God, can those people drink!" I don't believe, however, that it is inconsistent with either character's facility for denial or propensity towards escapism. I think the fact that they drink so much is the point. It allows them, temporarily, to be able to live with themselves. The fact that they can function and seem to function fairly well is all part of the myth they've constructed. I guess those readers never got the continual references to "The Great Gatsby."

As for another reviewer's criticism that Jorden seems too good to be true, what's wrong with being multitalented? We never question a variety of expertise's if the character is a man. Tom Clancy's characters are far more extraordinary in their ability to be experts in a multitude of areas. Why can't a woman?

What I found in Nanci Little's writing was a narrative style that is finely tuned, poetic without being excessive. Her characters live and breathe on the page. They are flawed, and they have courage and grace. They are not so different from many people I've known.

As I wrote earlier, this is not a book about golf; however, I learned more about the beauty of the sport than anyone has been able to convey to this non-golfer. I finally understood the allure of the greens. I've even considered taking it up.

As a book, "First Resort" is better than most. If you prefer stories about human relationships, take a chance on this one. It's a good read.

Nanci Little has become my favorite author. In Last Resort (as well as her other two novels)- I felt as if everything was happening right around me-its that realistic! The characters, contrary to what a few others have said, really spoke to me. I found them totally believable and had no problem at all with Jordan's multiplicity of talents. To comment critically on the alcohol use, the golfing setting (which I found accurate), the misogynist characters, etc., speaks volumes on the lack of understanding of some readers. I felt that each of these aspects was necessary to the storyline and were universally handled in a tasteful and positive manner. I hope Ms. Little is just at the start of a long and prolific writing career. I, for one, will read everything she writes.

This book kept my interest all the way thru. It was one I did not want to put down until I was completely finished with it. Always enjoy this author books.

The end of the trilogy and by far not the best of the 3 books. Hannah and Rafe's story was the best and it goes downhill from there. The next two aren't bad just not as good and I really enjoyed the secondary characters but got tired of the references that because you are a Harte you act this way or a Madison acts this way.

In this book I couldn't warm up to Octavia for some reason. She seemed manipulating and just so sassy to Nick, not that he didn't have his hang-ups with relationships. It seemed they are at odds with each other and then suddenly they are in love. The saving character in this story is Carson and his character added some funny moments.

I found myself skimming a lot in this one. For some reason it just didn't hold my interest. As I said I wouldn't really say it was bad just not as well written as the first one and then Gabe a Lillian's story wasn't as good as the first book but better than the last one. I thought the "Curse" thing was over done. It's all their friends and family talked about. In real life it would have been somewhat embarrassing. Even people who didn't know Nick that well, would say things to him about it. Everyone kept blaming Nick but Octavia made it clear to everyone many times she was leaving the end of summer. IT was those things that just didn't come together for me. IT started getting on my nerves and when a book of fiction gets on my nerves, I usually give up on it but did finish it and knew pretty much how it would end. It was just the getting there that was the problem for me.

I'm still new to JAK books so not sure of her writing style. I started with Deep Waters and liked it so much but haven't read another I liked as well yet. I will continue to try a few more. I have read so much of Nora Roberts, Luanne Rice, Susan Wiggs, Catherine Anderson and wanted a different author for awhile so maybe just have to get used to the different style.

I was very interested in reading this book because the very fisrt book that got me into her was A SHARED DREAM. It had a good story line as well as summer in eclipse i still havent had the chance to read the first two but if theyre anything like this one im sure ill buy it and read it.
JAK makes it so easy to read her books and enjoy them that its hard to put them down.
KEEP ON ROCKIN'

I think I've burnt out on Jayne Ann Krentz. The chemistry between her main character never sizzles, it just slow simmers. And I'm so tired of her cliched characters: the cold, uptight, calculating, corporate male hero and the emotional/spiritual, free spirit heroine. Tired, tired, tired. On top of that, the plots are boring. I give up on this author.

I listened to this as an unabridged audiobook and if it weren't for the fact that I was trapped in a car with no other form of entertainment to be found I more than likely would've given up on this one mid-way through. The characters were too blah to hold my attention and their attraction to each other just didn't come alive for me.

It turns out this story is the third in a series but it easily stands alone since its plot isn't exactly complicated. Octavia Brightwell is relatively new to Eclipse Bay and runs a successful art gallery. She arrived in Eclipse Bay to soothe the rift between the Madison & Harte families that her dear departed aunt caused years earlier. Once Octavia realizes the feud has been mended without her help she decides it's time to leave Eclipse Bay. She's also desperate to get away from gorgeous, heartbreaker Nick Harte who continually pesters her for a date. When she finally makes up her mind to high-tail it out of town she agrees to the date with Nick (don't ask). They soon become romantically entangled and banter back and forth denying their true feelings. Before long the two find themselves partners in the search for a valuable missing painting and, well, I bet you can figure out the rest . . .

These two are very much stock characters. We have Nick who lost the love of his life years earlier and has never allowed himself to fall in love again (and has a reputation for loving `em and leaving `em before the night is over) and then we have the "free spirit" Octavia who sort of floats through life and avoids romantic entanglements. Stock characters are all fine and good when they're written with depth and emotion but these two were just flat out bland and their relationship lacked any sort of spark. Nick also has an annoying habit of referring to Octavia as a "fairy queen" that made me cringe every time he uttered the words.

There are also pop-up appearances by characters who I only guess starred in previous books. They add a little to the story but their visits did not convince me that I need to search for the previous books in this series. There are also far too many over the top weird/quirky/cult-y/odd speaking secondary characters populating this story to be believed.

The few bits of fun banter and Nick's enjoyable little boy Carson are about all that I'll be remembering about "Summer In Eclipse Bay" once I finish writing this review.