Ronnie Honneker likes the idea of being Senator Lewis Honneker's wife much more than she actually likes being married to him. She may prefer the status of her marriage: the power, the prestige, the wealth, the comforts and beautiful things that such a marriage provides, but for Ronnie it is also an acutely lonely marriage. For she is the second wife. Married to the Honorable Lewis Honneker, a man twice her age who is wealthy, successful, and revered by the voters in his home state of Mississippi.What the public doesn't know is that this pillar of the community is actually quite fond of engaging in casual indiscretions. Now he is running for re-election and his lovely young wife is expected to stand beside him. Though she is publicly scorned as the woman who broke up the senator's first marriage, Ronnie does her best to promote her husband's re-election campaign. Yet her husband is not the man she thought he was, and although long accustomed to it, Ronnie despises the strain of the campaign trail - especially the constant facade and total lack of privacy.The glamorous political life can't make up for the emptiness deep in her heart, a dark space which she fears will never be filled. Until political strategist Tom Quinlan enters the picture. Hired to soften Ronnie's public image, Tom prides himself on his work, never mixing business with pleasure. Solid, quietly handsome, the quintessential southern boy-next-door, he is called in to enhance Senator Honneker's campaign and he takes his job very seriously.To him, Ronnie is a job. Certainly a challenging one; but remaking Mrs. Honneker's public image is nothing more than a routine assignment to Tom Quinlan. Ronnie Honneker is perhaps one of Tom's most challenging assignments - she is difficult to direct, and can definitely test any man's patience. So why does he find himself unable to stop thinking about her? Her flowing auburn hair, her long, perfectly muscled legs, those inviting chocolate-brown eyes? Tom has never allowed himself to surrender to such feelings. . .until now. Ronnie never expected to find love again; and certainly not with a man like Tom Quinlan. However, as much as she may try, she just can't ignore the desire that Tom ignites in her or the newly-awakened passions that he inflames within her - feelings she'd once thought were gone forever. And she knows that the tempers flaring between them are just a cover for their barely contained passions. Together they discover that love and politics make uneasy bedfellows as they must contend with their developing attraction to each other, a swarm of snooping reporters, and a public which is growing increasingly suspicious of their relationship.Yet when the senator is found murdered and Ronnie is accused of the crime, only Tom believes she is innocent. Now the two must work together to uncover the senator's sordid secrets; as the Honorable Lewis Honneker died while in the midst of a particularly sticky scandal. But as the stakes rise, they learn that they must watch their backs. And follow their hearts.While I certainly enjoyed the plot of this story; in my personal opinion, there was an overly heavy focus on the romance of the plot. Whereas I perhaps would have appreciated fewer graphic sexually explicit scenes in the story - I prefer for the romantic scenes to be left up to the reader's imagination more often, I suppose - I really enjoyed the mysterious part of the plot. Overall, I would give The Senator's Wife by Karen Robards a B+! I think that I have at least two more of Ms. Robards' books on my bookshelf that I'd be interested in searching out and reading sometime in the future, but for right now it's not imperative to me.
Honestly, I really really liked this book. I liked how the writing was so light which makes it a fast-paced book even though it deals with heavy social issues like second wives and politics and cheating. At some point, I really got annoyed at Ronnie because of the reason why she stays married with an asshole for a husband. Most of the time I just wanna yell at her for being so selfish and for dragging Tom into her mess. But somehow she finds the l ight in the dark and decided for the better.And I liked that.I think she's a very strong woman because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be so easy to know that your husband has been cheating on you for a very long time. I loved how Karen Robards connected the characters. I love the plot twist and the thrill. I would just like everyone to know that this book isn't just romance and all that cliché stuff but it has action and thrill and those things excites me and it made me love this book even more.Overall I rated this ★★★★☆ stars because it isn't my favorite book of all time but it sure is in my top 10 list.
What do You think about The Senator's Wife (1998)?
* Note * Romance books rarely go above a 3 for me, so that's not an unusual score. Gorgeous red-head raised in a poor divorced family is determined to become wealthy. A discussion with a Senator visiting her school leads to an internship to a full-time job to marriage after he's divorced. His kids hate her because they think she broke up the marriage. Meanwhile, her husband is slipping in the polls, and our heroine is seen as a liability. So a campaign consultant is hired to work with her on her
—Elizabeth
I'm usually sad when a good book comes to an end, mostly because I want to find out what happens next and often because I like the characters. In this case, I was relieved to be finished with it.I didn't like Ronnie, the main character, at all. And I didn't find the love story believable. It was lust, nothing more. She and Tom barely knew each other and only mentioned physical attributes when they talked or thought about each other - the color of her hair, how hot she looked in a dress, her white skin, etc. Nothing was ever said about how interesting, fun, caring, or intelligent either of them were. They didn't ever seem to miss just being together or talking to each other - It was always, always, always about sex and nothing else. I thought Ronnie was annoying and very entitled - especially when she was so angry and hostile because he tried to ignore her advances. He apparently had some misgivings, but she thought nothing of coming on to an employee and cheating on her husband. And then, when she fell "in love", she had to think about whether or not she wanted to walk away from wealth and material possessions. I honestly didn't find one redeeming quality in her at all. Marla was far more interesting, and I wish we had heard more of her story. She seemed real and multi-dimensional, but her chapters were short and there weren't that many of them. The book would have benefited from a better balance.I also thought the writing was often lazy. Both times a stun gun is used, someone "dropped like a stone". Really? Were there no options other than using a tired old phrase just a few pages apart? I also thought the explanation of the murders was rushed and not at all satisfying. I generally keep books that I have read, but this one is going to a Book Exchange. It could have been so much better.
—Debbie
I would have given this book 2 stars if I had read it while on vacation. It seemed like a good, semi-trashy beach read. I bought it at a used book sale because the title seemed familiar, like I had read a review of the book and seemed interested in it. I was probably thinking of the book written by Sue Miller with the same title. Whoops. It was somewhat intriguing, but the ending was way out there. While I was getting close to the end, I kept thinking, there isn't a lot of book left, how is it going to end? I thought that the Marla character was more interesting than the main character, too.
—Leeann
