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Emily Kirkland and Christopher Delgado are two high powered people who need to keep their relationship secret in Rochelle Alers’s Private Passions. If you are absent-minded and forget titles easily, no need to worry, because every other chapter ends with the heroine wondering why she can’t give in to her private passions.
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Emily Kirkland is a beautiful, wealthy reporter for a news station in New Mexico. She has known Christopher Delgado all her life, and she’s been in love with him ever since she can remember. Chris is a state senator who is running for governor of New Mexico, and he has loved Emily ever since he can remember. Early in the book they talk about marriage, and each stares at the other and wishes they could get married. I thought, “Hey, you guys could just tell each other that, and then everybody would be happy!” Actually, they do get married, but for reasons which make no sense, they decide that they must keep their marriage a secret until after election day. They struggle to pursue their careers apart, each wishing that they could give into their private passions. They both struggle with their families, and then Emily has to go solve a murder. If this sounds summary sounds disjointed to you, you should try reading the book.
Or perhaps not. So much bothered me about this book that I hardly know where to start. The first thing that annoyed me was probably the overly enthusiastic descriptions of everything in the characters’ homes and wardrobes. Early on, you get the point: these people are very rich. The author obviously thinks it necessary to remind you on every other page that these people can all afford the best, and she does it with a Woodiwissian flare for adjectives. Some readers may find that the abundant descriptions paint a picture with words; you always know exactly what everyone is wearing and eating. But it was all way too much detail for me. If the author tells me the hero’s nails are professionally manicured in chapter one, I can take the leap of faith and assume that they are still manicured in chapter three – I don’t need to be told again and again, and I’m not really sure I even need to be told the first time.
The hero and heroine have huge extended families, and many of their relatives seem to have their own stories in other books. Several of their family members make an appearance, but I didn’t even attempt to keep them straight. And just like they are all rich, they are all beautiful, and they all sounded the same to me. The descriptions of the older ones all started out the same way: “Even at age 78 (or 63, or 92, or whatever) so and so was still classically beautiful.” Memo to Ms. Alers: sometimes rich people can be average, or ugly.
Even if you can get past the descriptive excesses, you still have to deal with unlikable characters. Emily is touchy and rude. Every time Chris even expresses mild curiosity about her career or her relationships with other people, she perceives it as an attempt to control her, and she snaps at him. At times she seems to be looking for excuses to get angry. However, Chris is no peach himself. Every time he sees another man look twice at Emily he becomes furious. And the author uses words like “fury” and “rage” to describe his emotions. He’s never just “irritated” or “annoyed” – clearly he could benefit from some anger management therapy. And oddly, these two spend a lot of time calling each other by their full names (Emily Teresa Kirkland and Christopher Blackwell Delgado). The author often uses all three names too, kind of like your mom used to do when she wanted to get your attention.
If you manage to get past the annoying descriptions and characters, you’re likely to be tripped up by the illogical plot. Emily is annoyed early on when her boss tells her she can’t cover Chris’s campaign because their friendship would make it a conflict of interest. So he assigns her to cover Chris’s opponent. It seems like that would also be a conflict of interest, but whatever. Then they decide to get married and not tell anyone until election day. Like it’s going to go over real big when the governor announces he’s secretly married? And why all the secrecy in the first place, you ask? Because Emily still wants to cover the other guy’s campaign. Eventually Emily is taken off that job, but they still decide not to tell anyone, even though Emily is now pregnant. Why is it still a secret? Your guess is as good as mine.
None of the details of the campaign make much sense. There is a lot of hand-wringing on Chris’s part because his opponent has discovered that his step-father is not his real father. It’s not like it would take a rocket scientist to figure that out, since Chris still has his birth father’s last name. They seem to worry a lot over what the press will do when they find the real father. Why? I never could figure that out. Since Chris’s opponent had a penchant for sleeping with married women, you’d think he’d have avoided mud-slinging. Had I been Chris, I’d have been more worried about the real scandal – his secret wife.
There’s a lot more that goes wrong here, including a move on the heroine’s part that’s so asinine that TSTL is an understatement. But with all the great books out there, I can’t think of one reason to pick this one up. Better to just leave Christopher Blackwell Delgado and Emily Teresa Kirkland to their own private passions.
Grade: F
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 22/02/01
Publication Date: 2001
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.