TEST
Leah Tallcloud has her life turned upside down when she learns the truth about her identity. All her life, Leah assumed she was the only child of Jim and Faith Tallcloud. However, Leah learns that her real name is Angelina Marlowe and that her parents, Roland and Natalie, were killed by a ruthless consortium of powerful men who want, at all costs to control the company owned by Leah’s birth parents. Since the Marlowe’s deaths, Jim and Faith have hidden Leah from those who might try to harm her.
Once Leah learns her true identity, she decides to go undercover at the company to expose her parents’ killers as well as rescue her biological grandfather, who has been imprisoned by the villains. However, Leah doesn’t count on meeting and falling in love with Hawk Bladehunter, a key player at the corporation, whom Leah knew as a girl. Leah is upset to learn that Hawk just might be part of the conspiracy. That is the plot of High Stakes, the latest Rebecca Brandewyne romance. And while the premise is interesting and I had hopes this book would be a thrilling romantic suspense novel, there are several factors that drain all the potential from the work.
The most serious problem is lethargic pacing. It takes nearly 150 drawn-out pages for Leah to get to the company and start her investigation, which in other hands could’ve been done in a tight, fast-paced chapter or two. Instead, Brandewyne gives us a painfully detailed flashback surrounding Leah’s trip to a grocery store with her parents where she and Hawk met as teenagers. Once the story gets underway, things still don’t pick up. Page after page is spent on the mundane, like bathing, making dinner and driving to work. It’s as though the author had to pad the novel in order to achieve a certain word count.
A more serious problem revolves around the characters and their actions towards each other. Hawk is your stock hero. He’s handsome, tough and a great lover. But beyond that, you really know nothing about him. Brandewyne could have given us insight into his childhood rather than showing his skill at making dinner or at the gambling tables or at least used those things to tell us more about him. I really felt I didn’t know this man, so when Leah declared she loved him, I could only ask myself what was it about him that she loved? She hardly knew Hawk. They never discussed what they wanted out of life, what dreams they shared or even their favorite color. Most of their talks revolved around work or Hawk’s constant attempts to seduce Leah, despite her objections. Which leads to another problem. . . .
In this day and age of sexual harrassment awareness, I found it implausible that a man who claimed to be as bright and intelligent as Hawk would actively and forcefully pursue his assistant, no matter how attractive she may have been. Men who do that sort of thing these days don’t stay in their positions for very long. This made the character seem more like a randy kid rather than a man of power and responsibility. There is an unsettling scene where Leah is watching Hawk beat the stuffing out of a rival. I found her sexual response to the graphic fistfight disturbing, not to mention distasteful.
Leah is a problem too. She at first believes Hawk is part of the evil going on at the business, until she falls in love with him. Then, for that reason alone, he can’t be evil. However, on the flimisiest of evidence, she later turns on Hawk and thinks he’s evil, which makes her do something stupid (which she hadn’t been until this point) and she gets in trouble that she must be rescued from. When will heroines (and writers) stop doing this?
There are other problems as well, relating to the villain and the suspense portion of the book. These problems again, are connected with the book’s pacing. For a hundred pages when the suspense should have been at the forefront, it was in the background, only to suddenly become the focus. It was as if the author suddenly realized she was writing a romantic suspense and picked up the pace dramatically. However, the way in which she did it was so confusing and choppily written that I kept wondering if I missed a couple of chapters. I didn’t. Brandewyne just had several rather surprising events happen off stage and told us about it later. Of course, if she had left out a portion of the dragged out beginning, we could have had those dramatic, revealing scenes and the story would have held together much better.
High Stakes is a very disappointing novel. Rebecca Brandewyne could have had a tight, action-packed, romantic adventure if only she had lopped off about 150 pages and made the characters more interesting and logical in their actions. This book is an example of a good premise gone bad.
Grade: D
Book Type: Romantic Suspense
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 12/02/99
Publication Date: 1998
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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.