What do You think about Shadow Lover (1999)?
SHADOW LOVER by Anne StuartAfter eighteen years, Alex arrives home to his dying mother. Or it really Alex? Is he really a con man after Sally MacDowell’s fortune? He is certainly handsome enough and could look like an adult Alex. Carolyn knows the truth about what happened so many years ago. She was a foster child when she came to live with the MacDowells at two years old. She had grown up with Alex, had a crush on him when she was a teenager, even though he was spoiled and obnoxious stealing whatever he could when he ran off at seventeen. Carolyn quit her job to come home and care for Aunt Sally when she was diagnosed with cancer.Sam Kincaid is good at manipulating people and is determined to get Carolyn to believe he is Alex. He had received a lot of information when he made his deal with Warren to convince Sally and the servants. Carolyn will be more difficult to convince, but Alex (Sam) is confident.This is how the book begins, but is it really so straight forward? You can count on Anne Stuart to have lots of twists and turns. You won’t want to stop reading SHADOW LOVER! You will be turning the pages as fast as you can to find out what will happen next with several surprises. Carolyn had a huge crush on Alex as a teenager; will she be able to stay clear of this Alex? Will Alex go through with his deception? Is his game more than just the inheritance? SHADOW LOVER is an excellent romance with a mystery that will keep readers guessing.
—Marilyn Heyman
I’ve decided that I like Anne Stuart books. I’ve only read two so far and apparently she has a gazillion already written but they seem to be short little bundles of eventual happily ever afters. They are a little formulaic but I didn’t care at all. I liked guessing at the mystery, I liked rooting for the couple, I liked finding out that everything was not as it seemed. They are short enough I don’t have to invest much time and I can easily finish the entire book in one sitting.Alex and Carolyn grew up together until he decided to run away and was never heard from again. Carolyn never told anyone what she saw the night he left, the night she is sure he died. Now almost twenty years later a man shows up claiming to be Alex and Carolyn is torn between revealing the secret she has carried all these years or letting the woman who was like a mother to her die happy thinking her son has returned.Carolyn is the ever dutiful adoptive daughter. Although Sally took Carolyn in when she was two years old, she treated her well but Carolyn knows she is still not a true MacDowell. She longs to be a part of the family that has always been kept at arm’s length from her. She has been beyond dutiful to them and Alex think’s that maybe it is time to shake her up and make her want something more for herself. “They don’t really look at you, Carolyn. They don’t listen to you; they don’t waste one moment thinking about you. You’re part of the furniture to them.”“Maybe,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait.“I think about you, Carolyn. I look at you every chance I get.”“Yeah, and if I’m a piece of furniture to you, it’s probably a bed.”The dispute over Alex’s true identity is settled rather quickly in the book, but that isn’t even close to the end of the mystery. Because even though that little detail is cleared up, what is not cleared up is why someone tried to kill the real Alex MacDowell twenty years ago, and will he/she try again. The romantic tension between Alex and Carolyn is palpable and I loved the way he crawled underneath her skin to get her outside of her comfort zone. Every good girl needs a man who can push her buttons and get her outside of her head.“Answer me one question, Carolyn,” He said. “If you don’t eat or drink or have sex, what do you do for fun?”“I eat healthy things, I drink in moderation, and I have sex when I find someone worth sleeping with.” She didn’t bother to hide her defiance.“But your standards are impossibly high, aren’t they? How long has it been since you found someone you couldn’t resist?”“It hasn’t happened yet.”Well then what else can you say except ‘Challenge Accepted’ and Alex seems to be more than up for the challenge and there were a few steamy scenes.I will say I was pretty sure I figured out the culprit early on. But there were plenty of revelations that I didn’t see coming along with the reasoning behind the murder attempts which made a very enjoyable suspense story.I’m sure I’ll read more of Anne Stuart’s works in the future because I like the setup of her stories so far and I really like knowing I’ll get a complete story in about 250 pages. So far these are some of my favorite PMS/Rainy Day comfort reads.
—Robin (Bridge Four)
Anne Stuart has more than thirty years of experience within the romance genre and is the winner of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Clearly, she’s somewhat of an expert - and it shows. Her novel ‘Shadow Lover’ is a near-flawless adult romance, dealing dexterously a complicated relationship as well as dramatically mysterious family secrets. In a small town, the gorgeous MacDowells are facing a familial loss, that of matriarch Sally MacDowell. But she refuses to pass away before witnessing the fulfillment of her dying wish: that of seeing her long-lost son, Alex. When Alex appears again, conveniently acquiring a hefty inheritance, Sally is thrilled and welcomes him with uncontained joy. Only Carolyn, foster daughter, knows that this isn’t the real Alex, not after what she witnessed eighteen years ago when he ran away. As she puts it: ‘Here were a million reasons why he could be Alex MacDowell, and only one reason why he couldn’t.’ What follows is a novel full of drama and intrigue, alongside snobbish secondary characters, all desperately greedy and arrogant, eager for a share of money.What was refreshing about this plot was the heroine, Carolyn. She was surprisingly likable, a rarity when it comes to 90s romance stories. It’s easy to see things as she perceives them and behind that cool facade she has perfected so well, lies a girl who was in love with her adopted step-brother and who is hungry for Sally’s affection. Her reaction to Alex’s reappearance is perfectly reasonable and the various tests she poses in order to prove that the man is not Alex, show her determination and cleverness. Additionally, Anne Stuart is well known for producing well thought-out gamma heroes (described by a blogger as a man who - unlike alpha or beta heroes - is ‘one who is indifferent and is never possessive of the heroine...and who sometimes never admits their love until the very end of the novel...’). While that may not necessarily be the most flattering illustration of a character, I do believe it is extremely accurate. Alex - or at the very least, the man who claims he is Alex - doesn’t hide his desire for Carolyn, but neither does he see it as his duty to protect her or reassure her of his sentiments. This made him the perfect foil to Carolyn, and I believe made their relationship more credible as it gave them equal roles. Ultimately, while this book may not be Anne Stuart’s most famous or best novel necessarily, I do think it is a good introduction into the romance genre, and gives a reader a good idea of what to expect if they are to read future books by the author. Reviewed for A Drop of Romeo
—A Drop of Romeo
