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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
My second Sandra Brown book. Her formula works well: suspense + intrigue + romance = great escapist vacation reading!
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I would like to thank Netgalley for giving me a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review. I haven't read a Sandra Brown book in quite a while, but once I started this one I was drawn in as usual with her writing style. She keeps you on the edge of your seat and when one chapter leaves you hanging you just have to find out what happens in the next. So many twists and turns that just keep you guessing and keep you reading to find out what's to come!
Listen, these books aren't great. They are cliche and vaguely sexist and every male protagonist is the same. But also they are damn entertaining audiobooks when you're driving for a long time and sometimes that's all you want.
Secrets. LOTS of secrets. You can never go wrong with a Sandra Brown story. This one could be a movie, or a mini-series easily. There is something so real about her writing. A couple of slow / dragging spots kept it from being a perfect 5 star story, but it's a really good story. I liked the characters, gasped out loud when I read "who done it" and loved the romance, while not over the top, was perfect for this read. Very current, very now.
Damn … spoke too soon!
No sooner did I close my review of Sandra Brown’s thriller OUTFOX with the effusive praise,
“I’ve officially added Sandra Brown to my short list of authors guaranteed as a go-to solution to lift you out of a reading funk or to fix the downside after-effects of DNFs, wall-bangers, or simply suffering through a depressing or disappointing 1- or 2-star dog!”
than I feel like I’m left with little choice than to rate my latest Sandra Brown reading as the very 2-star dog I was talking about!
SEEING RED is “too” - too long, too slow, too complex, too ugly and too angry. There isn’t a single character in the entire novel (including the obvious lead male and female who are endlessly entwined in Sandra Brown’s inevitable sweaty underlying romance) that will evoke even a modest amount of understanding, sympathy, or mental support. The lead male, a disgraced ATF agent forced to resign his position before he was actually fired, is a sarcastic wise-ass whose words never reflect the slightest measure of common sense, compassion or serious understanding. But, unlike Nelson DeMille’s John Corey, for example, the sarcasm is wasted because it’s never funny or witty. It’s Don Rickles’ style hate on steroids. He also happens to be a self-entitled dirtbag with a steamer trunk full of emotional baggage, a narcissistic misogynist who thinks foreplay and sexual assault are interchangeable activities, and (IMO) a rapist who thinks lack of dissent is consent (if indeed he ever concerns himself at all with such a pointless issue as female consent).
And as to the female lead of the piece? Well, suffice it to say that her self esteem seems to have taken a vacation as she accepts this male crap and ultimately comes to welcome it.
How about the plot? Well, we’re talking some serious, truly despicable, and entirely loathsome criminality here that is spread out through a significant portion of SEEING RED’s list of characters. But, for my money, nobody is really brought to heel and made to pay in a way that I would see as just and meaningful.
Sandra Brown is a prolific author. There’s no doubt about it and much of her work, as I’ve stated previously is top-shelf thoroughly enjoyable romantic suspense. But I should have known and recalled that when you write so many books, it’s a logical inevitability that something will be the best and something will be the worst. The only question is how bad that “worst” will be. SEEING RED has to be on the list of possibilities.
Paul Weiss
No sooner did I close my review of Sandra Brown’s thriller OUTFOX with the effusive praise,
“I’ve officially added Sandra Brown to my short list of authors guaranteed as a go-to solution to lift you out of a reading funk or to fix the downside after-effects of DNFs, wall-bangers, or simply suffering through a depressing or disappointing 1- or 2-star dog!”
than I feel like I’m left with little choice than to rate my latest Sandra Brown reading as the very 2-star dog I was talking about!
SEEING RED is “too” - too long, too slow, too complex, too ugly and too angry. There isn’t a single character in the entire novel (including the obvious lead male and female who are endlessly entwined in Sandra Brown’s inevitable sweaty underlying romance) that will evoke even a modest amount of understanding, sympathy, or mental support. The lead male, a disgraced ATF agent forced to resign his position before he was actually fired, is a sarcastic wise-ass whose words never reflect the slightest measure of common sense, compassion or serious understanding. But, unlike Nelson DeMille’s John Corey, for example, the sarcasm is wasted because it’s never funny or witty. It’s Don Rickles’ style hate on steroids. He also happens to be a self-entitled dirtbag with a steamer trunk full of emotional baggage, a narcissistic misogynist who thinks foreplay and sexual assault are interchangeable activities, and (IMO) a rapist who thinks lack of dissent is consent (if indeed he ever concerns himself at all with such a pointless issue as female consent).
And as to the female lead of the piece? Well, suffice it to say that her self esteem seems to have taken a vacation as she accepts this male crap and ultimately comes to welcome it.
How about the plot? Well, we’re talking some serious, truly despicable, and entirely loathsome criminality here that is spread out through a significant portion of SEEING RED’s list of characters. But, for my money, nobody is really brought to heel and made to pay in a way that I would see as just and meaningful.
Sandra Brown is a prolific author. There’s no doubt about it and much of her work, as I’ve stated previously is top-shelf thoroughly enjoyable romantic suspense. But I should have known and recalled that when you write so many books, it’s a logical inevitability that something will be the best and something will be the worst. The only question is how bad that “worst” will be. SEEING RED has to be on the list of possibilities.
Paul Weiss
3.5***
Not one of my favourites if SB. She writes better. The plot was nowhere pulling me into it. The bad guy reveal was not a big surprise but yes, there are certain moments with the classic SB touch.
Not one of my favourites if SB. She writes better. The plot was nowhere pulling me into it. The bad guy reveal was not a big surprise but yes, there are certain moments with the classic SB touch.
This one felt a little flat for me. I didn’t really like the main characters. The female was a reporter that seems really well respected by everybody but for what? She seems to just be an on scene reporter not an investigative journalist…and she adds nothing to the main plot. You could switch her out for a character with a completely different personality and nothing would change.
The main male character was so harsh and brutish…and alpha…I’ve just read him so many times before…he was nothing new.
I did like the plot though and the little twist at the end. I have to admit I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the book to pick up on that before it happened. Haha!
Overall an okay read that could’ve benefited from some better character development.
The main male character was so harsh and brutish…and alpha…I’ve just read him so many times before…he was nothing new.
I did like the plot though and the little twist at the end. I have to admit I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the book to pick up on that before it happened. Haha!
Overall an okay read that could’ve benefited from some better character development.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced