TEST
I suppose the identity of the villain in Envy could be considered a spoiler. If you don’t want to know it, you might want to stop here. Of course, the book features a love story between a married woman and a man who is not her husband, so I was pretty sure I knew who the villain had to be before I even opened it.
Maris Matherly-Reed is a book editor at the highly-respected New York publishing house founded by her father. Her husband, Noah Reed, also works for Matherly Press, devoting his time to the financial side of the business. Although they’ve only been married for two years, Maris worries that her marriage is failing, and she suspects that Noah’s real interest in her might lie in the fact that she’s the boss’s daughter. After all, she fell in love with him before even meeting him, by reading his critically-acclaimed novel. How well does she really know him?
When Maris finds an extraordinary, unsolicited manuscript in her slush pile, she immediately flies to Georgia to meet the book’s author and to encourage him to finish the book. The author in question is Parker Evans, a mysterious, unfriendly, angry recluse who is also manly and desirable. Maris spends some time in Georgia, becoming more and more attracted to Parker. Meanwhile, her husband Noah is in New York, cheating, blackmailing, and being a vicious bastard. Maris does not suspect that Noah is a borderline sociopath, so when she realizes the extent of her desire for Parker, she flees back to New York, determined to save her marriage.
Not only is Maris being deceived by Noah; she’s also being manipulated by Parker. It seems that he deliberately lured her to Georgia with his manuscript. (I must say, if I had a clever scheme, I would not make it hinge on a book editor’s being so excited about an unfinished, unagented manuscript that she feels compelled to leave New York and fly across the country to meet the author. Does that ever happen?) Parker’s book, Envy, is the story of two young men whose friendship is slowly transformed into something much darker by, of course, envy. The events in Parker’s novel, the reader soon learns, are not entirely fictitious, and they will have a direct bearing Maris’ life.
I liked the love story in this book a lot. That surprised me; I was unhappy at the outset that the heroine was a married woman. But regardless of her attraction to Parker, Maris doesn’t give up on Noah until she knows that her marriage is over. Maris is, to be kind, a bit clueless, but Parker is interesting. Manipulative, angry, and sometimes cruel, his love for Maris is the more tender for his harshness. There is one love scene between them that’s funny and sweet and wonderfully hot. Sandra Brown has always written great love scenes.
Envy has its flaws. The romance fell a little flat in the end, because Parker never gives Maris the apology that she richly deserves. And I’m always disappointed when a good author resorts to descriptions of skanky villain sex. Also, because it’s not primarily a romance novel, the love story can’t carry it; and as far as the suspense plot is concerned, I was way ahead of Maris every step of the way. I was so lulled by the predictability that I began inventing possible plot twists that never happened, just to keep myself interested.
Brown’s writing style can be repetitious and loquacious. This trait is annoyingly increased and exaggerated in the excerpted sections of Parker’s novel. Presumably this was Brown’s attempt to give Parker a different style from her own, but actually Parker’s book reads like a dead-on parody of a Sandra Brown novel.
I’ve read a lot of books by this author, from her apparently-endless backlist of series romances to her more recent Warner thrillers. Some I’ve loved; some I’ve thought were awful (like the all-too-aptly-named Unspeakable). Envy falls somewhere higher on the scale. Grading was difficult; the set-up for Parker and Maris to meet was unique but contrived. Their romance was good and their love scenes hot, but the adultery angle may be a potential problem. The hero is wonderfully alpha but the heroine is nowhere his match and the suspense seemed anything but suspenseful to me. Put it altogether and the end result is a slightly better than average read.
Grade: C+
Book Type: Fiction
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 30/10/01
Publication Date: 2001
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.