The amusing and witty interaction and dialogue between the hero and heroine is what steals the show. Andreas, our dark brooding hero has his plans of vengeance turned upside down by the sunny, quirky Phoebe Pace. Andreas wants nothing to do with Phoebe, but she somehow wheedles her way into Andreas' operations so that she and her family can pay back the debt that they owe Andreas. Despite the fact that Andreas pushes her away again and again, Phoebe doesn't let this stop her -- in fact she optimistically interacts with Andreas with a bright personality. No matter how he acts she never lets that get down. In fact, you can tell that Andreas doesn't really want to remove her from his sphere; if he did, he would have found a way to get rid of her a long time ago. The plot description is where this novel fails, hence the three star rating that I gave it. The author did not provide enough background for me to understand what was going on in the plot, and why that was important to the main characters. Which is a shame, because it would have added more depth and layer to their characterizations. Although Andreas was pretty much like "Vengeance!" throughout the chunk of the novel, because of the lack of plot description, I ended up not understanding/caring about where that vengeance path led. This could have been a four star review otherwise. Perhaps if I read the previous books, the plot would have been more apparent. I was in the mood for a little historical. This was a new author to me, so this appealed too. The characters in this book were a real puzzle to me. But they were fascinating enough for me to keep reading. This book was very well written. But I felt somewhat detached from the hero and heroine for some reason...There were occasional glimpses of them in touch with their emotions but not enough to increase the emotional intensity of this book. The sexual chemistry was present but again the writing & way characters were portrayed made it tepid overall.I found the writing in this one a combination of confusing. There are also several times when the action skips from one place to another, but there is no transition or line space to indicate the switch. I caught myself going back several times to see whether I'd skipped a paragraph. I hadn't-the transitions simply weren't there.Reasonably good story, but sometimes I felt like I had walked in on a conversation and couldn't fully follow the thread. Anyways, I think lots of people might like this book, it might just be me...
What do You think about In Total Surrender (2011)?
soo totally awesome! great characters and story! Andreas and Phoebe belong together
—amanda
I definitely loved this one more than the previous book! Review to come!
—liz
