I actually fell asleep yesterday while reading this book. That should tell you something. It was just a completely lackluster story. The plot was dull, the romance utterly dull, and the characters moderately dull. There wasn't really anything I found particularly interesting.The Widow is about a widowed woman (shocker, right?) who is now a Boston homicide cop. Seven years ago, on their honeymoon, her FBI agent husband was murdered while they stayed in his childhood home on an island in Maine. Abigail has never been able to forget what happened back then. She's never stopped wanting to know who cold-bloodedly killed her husband and why it happened. But in the seven years, she's never been able to discover anything. Then on the anniversary of their wedding, she gets a mysterious phone call that makes her more determined than ever. So she decides to head back to Mt Desert to see what she can find out. Once their, she runs into Owen Garrison, a man with as much tragedy in his past as she has. And he seems to be the only one around who doesn't want her gone. But as Abigail searches for answers, things only seem to get more confusing.For me, this book was only barely interesting and engaging. Mostly, it just bored me and I had to keep forcing myself to pick it up and keep reading. The book as a whole was just really slow-moving and never seeming to get anywhere. I kept reading and reading and nothing was happening except these small little things that don't give the plot any momentum. You could probably cut out the middle of the book and not miss anything important because basically the story just goes around and around the same information. And I got tired of hearing the same facts stated over and over again. Even the suspense regarding the antagonist identity didn't work for me. The author put so much effort directing attention to one specific character that when it turns out to be someone else, it was just like, ummm...okay? And the reason why? Well, that was out of the blue. Some clues to that earlier in the book would have been nice.Even worse, though, was that the romance was completely and utterly flat. It's like 250 pages (out of 330+) before anything interesting happens between them, and even then, it was just awkward. I think they shared one kiss earlier and when it happened, all I could think was 'that was weird' because it came from nowhere. I didn't feel any build up between them, and almost no chemistry. And they're acting like there's this thing developing between them and I didn't feel it at all. Then the ending between them was really lame and didn't give me any sense as to where they were headed as a couple. It didn't help that I found the characters (Abigail and Owen) a bit dull and one-dimensional as well. I mean, you knew all these facts about them, but it was surface stuff. I never felt like I really knew these two characters. Which didn't help the romance aspect either because I didn't know them real well, and they didn't know each other much either.So overall, this book flopped for me. It wasn't so utterly awful that I wanted to throw it against the wall and add to my small DNF pile, but it's not a book I'd recommend to others. And it'll make me think twice before reading this author again (which sucks because I have at 2 more of her books in my TBR mountain...)
Having never read a Carla Neggers novel before, I have no way to compare this book to her other work. But if this is one of her best, I’d hate to see her worst.The Widow seemed scattered, as if Neggers threw in anything she had on hand. Part of the problem is none of the characters were distinct enough to stand out, so I had trouble keeping them straight. Constant shifting points of view – including a scattered few from the bad guy’s – kept me from getting ‘close’ to any of them, even her main characters.Abigail didn’t seem driven to find her husband’s killer. She wants to find who murdered him, yes, but she doesn’t have the ‘fire’ a main character should have. The local police and the FBI, too, seemed indifferent to his murder, or at least lackadaisical. In the real world, the murder of an FBI agent would have brought the FBI down on the island like the plagues of Egypt.There seemed to be no real foundation for the attraction between Owen and Abigail. She’s been visiting the island since her marriage seven years ago (and possibly before then) but it isn’t until now that Owen is suddenly attracted to her? Sorry. Guys don’t work that way. If he thinks she’s attractive now, he’s been thinking it for seven years. So why didn’t he act on it before this?Tension in a suspense novel should build slowly and steadily (with brief respites) from page one. The first 300+ pages of this novel are wheel-spinning – lots of motion with no forward progress. It’s only in the last 50 or 60 pages that things start happening all at once. Some of the things uncovered in those pages should have been uncovered earlier in this novel. In the real world, they would have been exposed long before this.The end result is a novel of romantic suspense that is neither romantic nor suspenseful. And Neggers misses the boat on too many things she should have gotten right.Sorry, Carla Neggers, I won’t be back.
What do You think about The Widow (2007)?
Abigail is a strong lady. She would have to be to survive the death of her husband on their honeymoon. Now 7 years later, the mystery is still unsolved and as a Boston Police Detective, Abigail plans to finally close this case. She is headed back to the cabin in Maine where the cliffs are as deadly as a gun. Owen is just one of the many men in this small burg who are connected to the crime, but Owen has his own heart break. Witnessing his sister drown at the age of 11 has left a drive in him to be one of the best disaster rescue people around.It will take these two and half the town to finally close the file on this murder.A fun mix of romance, mystery, and thriller. It does have some dry spots, but is still worth the read.
—Ryan
2 3/4 starsSeven years after the murder of her husband while on their honeymoon, Abigail Browning is still searching for answers to his death. After a mysterious phone call on her wedding anniversary, she is moved to investigate deeper into his murder. She returns to the scene of the crime and upsets the locals who had known her husband all his life.Although Carla Neggers is classified as a romance writer, in my opinion, this is NOT a romance. This is a mystery/suspense book. Yes, there is a couple in the book, but it is secondary (or further down the list) to the main story.I was intrigued by the idea of the story, but something seemed to be missing throughout and I wasn't sure what it was. I was interested in solving the mystery, which is what kept me reading. What bothered me, I realized near the end, were the characters. I felt no connection to them at all. Not a single character drew me in. They all seemed so flat. Even Abigail was flat. I should have been able to find some connection to the main character who tragically lost her husband, but nope, nothing. Overall, the feeling I got from this book was "blah." It just coasted along...no real excitement and no real low, either. I felt nothing. When all was revealed, I wasn't shocked, but almost relieved to have finally gotten there. The story was there, but it last a good execution bringing the reader into the story. I just didn't "feel" it.
—Laura
New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers does it again with another non-stop action, romantic suspense. Bestselling author of Abandon, and Cut and Run, she hits a homerun with her new edge-of-your-seat whodunnit.Abigail Browning is a Boston police officer who has not been able to get past the murder of her husband, Chris, seven years ago on their honeymoon in Maine. The crime has remained unsolved, even with all the tips and leads received over the past years. On the seventh anniversary of her husband's death, Abby receives a telephone call that she can't ignore. Another tip, but this time the mysterious caller states that the answer to Chris's murder resides at his home in Maine.Abby returns to Maine and begins to investigate once again the murder of her husband. While there, she reconnects with an old friend of Chris', Owen Garrison. His driveway connects with Abby's, so they see each other fairly often. Soon, both begin to open up about their feelings to one another. A slow but budding romance blooms as the investigation progresses, trying to catch the killer before he strikes again.I never did figure out who the killer was until toward the very end. A wonderful story that kept me guessing, with believable characters that I became to know well. I would recommend this to any romance or mystery lover.
—Wendy Hines
