What do You think about Carnal Innocence (1991)?
Fantastic book! It is about a concert violinist who has a emotional breakdown and escapes by moving into the old house she just inherited from her recently passed grandmother in rural Mississippi. Her second day there she finds a body in the pond on the property. She soon starts meeting all the town folk and learns that this is the third woman murdered in this rural area in the last 2 months and there was also one similar in Nashville a few hours away.The FBI gets involved and there are lots of suspects and lots of racist a$$ holes, but the main characters step in and save the day. In the end when you discover who the murderer is, it is an interesting twist and surprise. Although this person did trip my radar on more than one occasion through the book, but the circumstances of how the bodies were mutilated made me pass on this particular suspect. I think statistically the type of serial killer that would commit these kind of mutilations would be much different than the books perpetrator.It was a very good book. One I plan to read again.
—Chinablue_25 West Bostedor
REVIEW OF AUDIO & KINDLE: MARCH 28, 2014Narrator: Tom StechschulteProbably my favorite Nora Roberts, for now. NR, like Linda Howard, is a hit-or-miss with me, unlike Sandra Brown, whose books I usually do well with.The Narrator: Stechschulte, or Tom (easier to spell!) is every bit the seasoned and excellent narrator he is. I'd heard him once on a Christine Feehan Ghostwalkers series which he also narrates but Carnal Innocence shows off his skills a lot more. Tom's Tucker Longstreet brings across the man's Southern charm very effectively and while the rest of the male cast are also southern-accented, I had no difficulty differentiating him from Dwayne, his brother, or Burke, the sheriff.Tom's female voices were especially good - sounding like husky, warm-voiced women, lending a sexiness that I might not even, otherwise, feel about the heroine. I enjoyed Tom's performance here so much that I just might start listening to the rest of the Ghostwalkers even though I'm not a super-soldier-paranormal fan.The Story: I did not realize I'd read this book (would have been in the early 90s when NR was an auto-buy) until I reached the part where Billy T and friends were about to lynch Toby March, and then I remembered who the murderer was. It still didn't diminish my enjoyment and when I finished, I was wondering if there are anymore old, classic Roberts like this one. I've read quite a few but I don't recall liking any as much as CI. And I'm talking about her books written in the early to mid 90s. She was still an auto-buy, despite being in my 'B' list, because there were only a handful of contemporary romantic suspense writers at the time - Howard, Krentz, Brown, and Lowell, who dropped off my radar a long time ago, as did Krentz.Tucker is easily the star of this book and while I never did warm up to Caroline, I thought she gave Tucker back as good as he dished out. I like them enough as a couple to wish there was a second book where I could revisit them and see how they're doing a few years down the line. I can so easily picture Tucker's enjoyment of the various places he'd visit as he accompanies Caroline on her world tour. I know Tucker would make a hilarious tourist whose audio blog (if there was such a thing) I would follow!Overall, I found this NR a very satisfying balance of romance and murder mystery suspense, even if I am currently surfeit with serial killers.
—ElaineY
The setting of the sweltering, southern small-town is fantastic. It is inhabited with flamboyant characters who get under your skin quickly. They breath life in to their town with gossip, passion, love, death and everything in between. Add a rivting suspense with twists and turns that surprised the hell outta me and I was enthralled by this story from beginning to end. The romance was heart-tugging sweet, Caroline and Tucker are endearing characters with their personal quirks and their chemistry was evident from their first encounter! Once again I'm enamored by the characters, both main and supporting, and the setting that was full of southern charm. But the suspense plot added a thrill that shows Nora Roberts has a nack for incorporating various storythreads into a flowing, exciting read!
—Leontine
