Pleasant but predictable personal interaction. I wanted more meat. Audiobook narrator made it worse.Cleo runs a small hotel/inn. Her parents were killed a few years ago. A small group of friends work at the Inn. They call themselves a “Family.” This book takes the prize for using the word “Family” more than any other book I’ve read. Max arrives. Because he was a friend of Cleo’s friend, she gives him a job at minimum wage doing maintenance. He also gets room and board. She tells him he is now part of the “Family.” He likes this because he was brought up in foster homes. In one part Max wasn’t able to do something and thinks he might leave, but Cleo says it’s ok if you don’t succeed when you are part of the “Family.” (By the way, Max is wealthy and recently worked as a corporate executive. But Cleo doesn’t know that.) When talking to a bad guy Cleo says “you’re a product of a dysfunctional family.”Someone is threatening Cleo. Max hires O’Reilly a PI to investigate. As soon as O’Reilly arrives, he and one of the women have an instant attraction. He is now also part of the “Family” and will walk a young woman down the aisle at her coming wedding. Max and Cleo had an instant attraction with a marriage proposal that was too soon for me. Their relationship needed more time. It felt thrown in.This was mostly people puttering around the Inn, interacting, and getting along with each other. That was pleasant and kept my interest. But I’m marking this down because the suspense parts of the book were weak. There are three mysteries/subplots: 1. Where are the paintings that are supposed to be in Cleo’s possession that she knows nothing about? 2. Who is threatening Cleo? 3. Max used to work for a large hotel chain. They want Max to come back to his old job. Things get resolved at the end but not in new or different ways. It’s like the author just ended things the way she always does. AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR Richard Ferrone:I did not like his emotional interpretations for both the hero and heroine - like he made someone sound whiny or like a little girl. He was not sexy doing Max. He overacted when doing the villain art dealer Spark. He had an awful voice for Sammy the little boy. At times I heard his breaths which were annoying.OTHER BOOKS:This author is hit and miss with me. I liked her following books. All Night Long, Trust Me, Running Hot, Deep Waters, Sizzle and Burn, Twist of Fate.DATA:Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook length: 11 hrs and 39 mins. Swearing language: mild including religious swear words but not often used. Sexual language: mild. Number of sex scenes: 4. Setting: around 1993 Washington. Book copyright: 1994. Genre: contemporary romance with some suspense.
This was a solid book. The plot kept me interested and I liked both the hero and heroine, Max and Cleo.Max is a rich but lonely business man who desperately wants to belong to a family but doesn't know the first thing about being a part of one. Getting bounced from one foster home to another as a child taught him that possessions are the only things he can be sure won't leave him. When the story begins, art is the only thing that stirs any sense of passion in Max.Cleo is a young and generous innkeeper/writer who has lived through the tragic death of her parents. Orphaned in her twenties, she assembles a new family made up of close-knit friends who all work at her inn. Max's mentor, Jason was an accepted member of that "family" prior to his death. Cleo and the gang had no idea that Jason was secretly a billionaire hotel mogul when he wasn't at the inn with them.When Jason dies, he says that he's bequeathing Max five valuable paintings and that they're at Cleo's inn. Max jumps to the conclusion that Cleo must have been Jason's mistress and even after he meets the twenty-something Cleo, Max still assumes she must be secretly cold and calculating. Especially when Max asks about the paintings and Cleo claims to have no knowledge of them.The rest of the book, and their relationship, moves quickly. Cleo is basically ripe for the sexual picking and so open-hearted that there's never any doubt how she feels. Even when Max does things that should raise her suspicions, Cleo gives him the benefit of the doubt and believes the best of him. It takes Max much longer to trust the relationship because of his past, and even after he admits to himself how much he needs Cleo, his thoughts are of finding ways to permanently bind her to him so that she'll never leave him.All in all it was a satisfying read. Max was a good hero. He was confident and take-charge without being abusive or overbearing, and by the end he'd learned to open himself up to Cleo and the family. Cleo was a good heroine and the rest of the family members were fun additions. The villain was a little easy to spot and his motivations only got tossed in at the very end like an afterthought but it was sufficient to give a decent finale to the story.
What do You think about Grand Passion (2003)?
This is the first book I read by this author. It was okay. The first 1/3 of the book grabbed my attention. The main female character, Cleo, is a successful small business owner of an inn in Washington. Then she meets Max, the man in "The Mirror", and she becomes more naive in her thoughts and the comments she makes. I didn't like her as much after she met Max. There were some proofreading errors in the book too. A couple sentances would just end in mid-sentance and the next line in the book would have 2 words that didn't have anything to do with what was going on. It was weird. The author left a couple loose ends too, in my opinion. One was the shiny, silver-toned sneakers that Cleo wore. The author mentioned them numerous times but never went into detail on why she wore them or if they signafied anything. Another BIG loose end was with Max and Ben. They went to the hardware store to get items for the inn. They got to the car and were ready to leave when Ben realized they forgot something. So, Ben ran back inside the store while Max waited by the car. A couple guys who Max knew, approaced Max while he was waiting for Ben. Max and the 2 guys went for coffee. Next scene, Max is driving back to the inn and sees Cleo walking along the side of the road (her car ran out of gas). Max stops to pick her up and gets in the car. Well, Ben wasn't in the car with Max. Where was Ben? Did Max leave Ben at the hardware store? Poor Ben.
—Kathy
I wasn't satisfied with the story.It's about Max Fortune who was searching for his Luttrells which is given to him by Jason,his mentor and the person he treats as a father. Jason direct him to get his Luttrells to Cleopatra, the one who owns the Robbin's Nest Inn. At first, he suspects her hiding his paintings but as soon as he found that she's innocent, he was already attracted to her. She has been waiting for him. 'Till one day, Cleo receives notes which seems like a threat. Max was alarmed and was in need to protect her.Happy Ending.Sorry wasn't in the mood to type 'what I think' about it.
—Janssen
There was about a 10 year gap between this book and the later All Night Long by the same author. Since I listened to the books back to back, it's interesting to see how JAK used the same background story for both heroines... the parents both died from an apparent murder-suicide and both heroines were unable to let the verdict stand and had to find ways to cope.In All Night Long, the heroine became a reporter. In Grand Passion, the heroine wrote a book. Not just any sort of book, mind you, an "erotica" titled "The Mirror". The description of the cover of "The Mirror" sounds surprisingly similar to "Fifty Shades of Grey". But the Man in the Mirror seems a lot tamer than Christian Grey :)I enjoyed reading this book and have re-read it a couple of times. However, I have to say I don't think narrator Richard Ferrone was a suitable choice. There were too many long pauses in the middle of conversations which felt disconcerting. With Cleo's personality, I think it needed a more upbeat voice.
—Paraphrodite
