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domicspinnwand's review against another edition
3.0
Joah... Kann man lesen aber ist definitiv eines der schwächeren Bücher Gut dass es nur ausgeliehen war.
librarianinperiwinkle's review against another edition
3.0
I almost quit reading within the first few chapters because I really didn't much care for any of the characters, but I'm glad I kept going because they eventually started to grow on me.
The novel opens with Annie Hewitt, a debt-ridden ventriloquist stricken with pneumonia, driving through a blizzard on a small island off the coast of Maine to a cottage she must live in for the next 60 straight days lest ownership revert to her ex-stepfather. The sudden appearance of a man on horseback causes her to skid off the road into a snow-filled ditch, and things don't improve even after she drags her feverish self and her suitcases of puppets through the cold night to the dark cottage where the caretaker hasn't turned on the utilities as requested. The rider turns out to be her former step-brother and ex-boyfriend whom she hasn't seen in 18 years--since he tried to kill her. Theo Harp is now a famous author and recent widower, but this time she has the courage to stand up to him, in the process learning that all wasn't as it seemed back when they were teenagers.
Annie's mother never treated her very kindly, but on her deathbed, she promised Annie that the cottage contained "her legacy" and there would be plenty of money, so Annie begins the search, hoping to discover something that could help pay off the bills she incurred catering to her mother's dying whims. Annie spends hours up at Harp House trading housekeeping labor (to prevent Theo from firing her friend who can't do the work due to a broken foot) for wi-fi access so she can research the art and objects she finds. None of it seems valuable, but someone sure wants to scare Annie away because there is a series of break-ins, vandalism, threats, and once someone even shoots at her.
My favorite part of the book, I think, is the subplot about Jaycie's four-year-old daughter Livia who became mute after witnessing her mother shoot her father. Annie's talent for ventriloquism helps draw Livia out and start the healing process.
For reader's advisors: character and setting doorways. There is some swearing and eventually some sex scenes.
The novel opens with Annie Hewitt, a debt-ridden ventriloquist stricken with pneumonia, driving through a blizzard on a small island off the coast of Maine to a cottage she must live in for the next 60 straight days lest ownership revert to her ex-stepfather. The sudden appearance of a man on horseback causes her to skid off the road into a snow-filled ditch, and things don't improve even after she drags her feverish self and her suitcases of puppets through the cold night to the dark cottage where the caretaker hasn't turned on the utilities as requested. The rider turns out to be her former step-brother and ex-boyfriend whom she hasn't seen in 18 years--since he tried to kill her. Theo Harp is now a famous author and recent widower, but this time she has the courage to stand up to him, in the process learning that all wasn't as it seemed back when they were teenagers.
Annie's mother never treated her very kindly, but on her deathbed, she promised Annie that the cottage contained "her legacy" and there would be plenty of money, so Annie begins the search, hoping to discover something that could help pay off the bills she incurred catering to her mother's dying whims. Annie spends hours up at Harp House trading housekeeping labor (to prevent Theo from firing her friend who can't do the work due to a broken foot) for wi-fi access so she can research the art and objects she finds. None of it seems valuable, but someone sure wants to scare Annie away because there is a series of break-ins, vandalism, threats, and once someone even shoots at her.
My favorite part of the book, I think, is the subplot about Jaycie's four-year-old daughter Livia who became mute after witnessing her mother shoot her father. Annie's talent for ventriloquism helps draw Livia out and start the healing process.
For reader's advisors: character and setting doorways. There is some swearing and eventually some sex scenes.
keen23's review against another edition
2.0
Kind of a gothic mess. Lack of chemistry between the leads. The big secrets being not well hidden. Not SEP's best by a long shot.
outcolder's review against another edition
4.0
Just like how Katy Perry felt after she kissed a girl, I have read a Romance novel and I liked it. This genre is like bubble baths and chocolate bars and what the hell is wrong with that? Can't a guy take a bubble bath and eat a chocolate bar or does it always have to be cold showers and barbecue?
Romance is this genre about women trying out new stuff, overcoming their fears and, yeah, getting the guy. So when people hate on it, it's like, wait, you don't like stories about women winning?
It took me a while to get Susan Elizabeth Phillips' sense of humor. She has a broad range that mainly hangs around situational comedy but sometimes dips to pure slapstick and other times is more of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge inside joke, at least in this book which has a lot of allusions to gothic romance, especially the Brontes, sorry, I can't be bothered to get the umlaut on that e there. By about half way through the book though, some of the jokes had me laughing out loud.
I know. Real life isn't all happy endings. But it isn't all sad ones, either. And I know, in real life a woman is often happier without getting the guy or as a bumper sticker from my youth proclaimed, "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." I know all that. But if two people in a story belong together, and you want them to get together, and then for a brief moment just before the end you are like, "wait a minute, is she gonna blow all the conventions and leave them apart at the end? That would suck." So that when they do get together, and all the other people in the story are also feeling better about themselves, it is pretty satisfying, man. It can make you feel good.
So maybe some people don't like feeling good. OK. Not everyone has to read a romance novel. But I did. And I liked it.
Romance is this genre about women trying out new stuff, overcoming their fears and, yeah, getting the guy. So when people hate on it, it's like, wait, you don't like stories about women winning?
It took me a while to get Susan Elizabeth Phillips' sense of humor. She has a broad range that mainly hangs around situational comedy but sometimes dips to pure slapstick and other times is more of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge inside joke, at least in this book which has a lot of allusions to gothic romance, especially the Brontes, sorry, I can't be bothered to get the umlaut on that e there. By about half way through the book though, some of the jokes had me laughing out loud.
I know. Real life isn't all happy endings. But it isn't all sad ones, either. And I know, in real life a woman is often happier without getting the guy or as a bumper sticker from my youth proclaimed, "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." I know all that. But if two people in a story belong together, and you want them to get together, and then for a brief moment just before the end you are like, "wait a minute, is she gonna blow all the conventions and leave them apart at the end? That would suck." So that when they do get together, and all the other people in the story are also feeling better about themselves, it is pretty satisfying, man. It can make you feel good.
So maybe some people don't like feeling good. OK. Not everyone has to read a romance novel. But I did. And I liked it.
yodamom's review against another edition
2.0
Audiobook-
1.7 stars-I should have quit- this was not my kind of book at all
Quick and dirty- a down on her luck ventriloquist returns to her recently passed mother's island cottage to recover from many woes where she runs into and old flame, a mute child and an island of misfit grannies. She talks to her dolls, acts weird, avoids honest conversations, bends over backwards to keep everyone OK, sleeps with someone she shouldn't and gets shot at.
I do not like talking dolls, and dolls that people converse with are just creepy. I know, that is what a ventriloquist does, dummy ! No, this was more, she talked with them when they weren't even there, when she was alone, as her confidants, her friends. In the beginning of the story it was so overpowering I was just shaking my head muttering "this chick is wacko". There could be arguments that the dolls did have a positive spin, therapy dolls. I can see that being a great thing but ARGUH ! it did not screen romantic, sweet, endearing, no it screamed crazy to these ears. Why was it so dominate in the story ?
Was there romance, sure a very predictable step by step one. Was it sweet and made my heart flutter ? No, I was hear Scamp or Leo or some other freaky voice while things where getting waned up which ruined it for me. She played games, she couldn't manage to speak her mind on matters of her heart, she was a bender, no solid back bone.
1.7 stars-I should have quit- this was not my kind of book at all
Quick and dirty- a down on her luck ventriloquist returns to her recently passed mother's island cottage to recover from many woes where she runs into and old flame, a mute child and an island of misfit grannies. She talks to her dolls, acts weird, avoids honest conversations, bends over backwards to keep everyone OK, sleeps with someone she shouldn't and gets shot at.
I do not like talking dolls, and dolls that people converse with are just creepy. I know, that is what a ventriloquist does, dummy ! No, this was more, she talked with them when they weren't even there, when she was alone, as her confidants, her friends. In the beginning of the story it was so overpowering I was just shaking my head muttering "this chick is wacko". There could be arguments that the dolls did have a positive spin, therapy dolls. I can see that being a great thing but ARGUH ! it did not screen romantic, sweet, endearing, no it screamed crazy to these ears. Why was it so dominate in the story ?
Was there romance, sure a very predictable step by step one. Was it sweet and made my heart flutter ? No, I was hear Scamp or Leo or some other freaky voice while things where getting waned up which ruined it for me. She played games, she couldn't manage to speak her mind on matters of her heart, she was a bender, no solid back bone.
fairiesdust's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
misspippireads's review against another edition
"Heroes" is very different from SEP's usual novels. This piece was a bit more gothic, mysterious, and dangerous. It reminded me a bit of Northanger Abbey.
Time Period: Modern
Location: Peregrine Island, Maine, USA
Reviewed from a library copy.
Time Period: Modern
Location: Peregrine Island, Maine, USA
Reviewed from a library copy.
amlibera's review against another edition
3.0
Good fun, playing off of gothic tropes although there's a bit of a split personality happening in this one. All the pieces are there but the gothic trope frame keeps slipping away to reveal two main characters who don't quite belong there. Still satisfying and definitely a "read read"
rebroxannape's review against another edition
3.0
First things first. I love the iridescent dust jacket and endpapers. I am glad that the publishers are doing Susan Elizabeth Phillip's books right. Heroes Are My Weakness is built on the tropes of a Gothic Romance novel. It folds in a little Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Mistress of Mellyn, and probably a good many others. The book is dedicated to Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis Whitney among others. It was fun to figure out the many homages in this books to the various gothics I have read. The Hero (Theo) at first, seems dark and cruel, but of course we know the mystery of his past will be revealed and it will turn out that he is really a pussycat. I figured out the dark secret pretty quickly thanks to my familiarity with Rebecca. Annie, the Heroine, is all SEP: too quirky to live, and aided by, as in This Heart of Mine, some imaginary friends. In this case, not characters in a children book series, but puppets. I am glad to say the Puppets are actually fairly entertaining, and not annoying like Daphne and Benny in THOM. The typical Phillips humor is alive and well, much of it in the humorous way she plays on the cliches in a Gothic Novel. She could have wrapped it up a little sooner; the last few chapters kind of dragged a bit, but I guess she just couldn't resist inserting just one more scene common in many Gothics. I did love the setting on "Peregrine Island." It wasn't too hard to figure out that it was based on Monhegan Island, Maine. All in all, an entertaining read; Not her best, but well worth the time. I give it 3.5 stars, bumped up to 4 out of love and gratitude to the author for the many laughs and entertainment over the years.