Don't Look Back

Rating:
Summary: I wish I could have 3½ stars
Review: "Don't Look Back" presents Lavinia Lake and Tobias March ("Slightly Shady") with a new case for their fledgling company which conducts " inquiries of a personal and private nature." An old family friend, Howard Hudson, hires Lavinia to discover the murderer of his wife Celeste and to find the missing artifact known as The Blue Medusa. The plot of the novel is rather straight forward with very few turns and twist. Anyone who is a fan of mysteries will almost immediately be able to figure out who the murderer is and how the Blue Medusa was stolen. And of course, the reader is left with the knowledge that there will be a third book in this series.

For me the more interesting aspect of the novel were the characters. Lavinia and Tobias are equally stubborn and controlling which causes constant clashes as their love affair grows. Tobias, a man of mystery, but not quiet mysterious enough, has the urge to be absolutely in control of Lavinia's actions in order to protect her. However, Lavinia, the typical Quick heroine, a 21st century woman in Regency England, does not wish nor feels the need to be protected. The secondary characters, Anthony, Tobias' brother-in-law, and Emeline, Lavinia's niece, have now fallen in love and are in the process of developing their own personal problems. Both characters are still rather shallow without a lot of personality, but I suspect we will see them again and hope that they will develop more in the next book. Mrs. Chilton, the housekeeper and the buyer of currants provides the reader with some comic relief and a wishful longing for the old Amanda Quick who wrote "I Thee Wed", "Mistress", and "Seduction".

Amanda Quick seems to have changed her writing style in her last four novels. Her plots were never exceedingly strong; however her characters were very well drawn and had, for a lack of a better term, real life in them. They were delightful and drove the story rather than the plot driving the story. Now we have characters who are just there. They show sparks of life, but that is about it. Regardless,"Don't Look Back" is worth reading while on an airplane or sunning on the beach. It's a formula book, or what I call Bubble Gum for the mind. It doesn't require a lot of thinking, but it can entertain. I can only hope that Ms. Quick isn't resorting to lack luster books to satisfy her publisher's deadlines or to simply make money. I long for the old Amanda Quick whom I read when I first started to read romantic novels. I hope she will appear again.

Rating:
Summary: I wish I could have 3½ stars
Review: "Don't Look Back" presents Lavinia Lake and Tobias March ("Slightly Shady") with a new case for their fledgling company which conducts " inquiries of a personal and private nature." An old family friend, Howard Hudson, hires Lavinia to discover the murderer of his wife Celeste and to find the missing artifact known as The Blue Medusa. The plot of the novel is rather straight forward with very few turns and twist. Anyone who is a fan of mysteries will almost immediately be able to figure out who the murderer is and how the Blue Medusa was stolen. And of course, the reader is left with the knowledge that there will be a third book in this series.

For me the more interesting aspect of the novel were the characters. Lavinia and Tobias are equally stubborn and controlling which causes constant clashes as their love affair grows. Tobias, a man of mystery, but not quiet mysterious enough, has the urge to be absolutely in control of Lavinia's actions in order to protect her. However, Lavinia, the typical Quick heroine, a 21st century woman in Regency England, does not wish nor feels the need to be protected. The secondary characters, Anthony, Tobias' brother-in-law, and Emeline, Lavinia's niece, have now fallen in love and are in the process of developing their own personal problems. Both characters are still rather shallow without a lot of personality, but I suspect we will see them again and hope that they will develop more in the next book. Mrs. Chilton, the housekeeper and the buyer of currants provides the reader with some comic relief and a wishful longing for the old Amanda Quick who wrote "I Thee Wed", "Mistress", and "Seduction".

Amanda Quick seems to have changed her writing style in her last four novels. Her plots were never exceedingly strong; however her characters were very well drawn and had, for a lack of a better term, real life in them. They were delightful and drove the story rather than the plot driving the story. Now we have characters who are just there. They show sparks of life, but that is about it. Regardless,"Don't Look Back" is worth reading while on an airplane or sunning on the beach. It's a formula book, or what I call Bubble Gum for the mind. It doesn't require a lot of thinking, but it can entertain. I can only hope that Ms. Quick isn't resorting to lack luster books to satisfy her publisher's deadlines or to simply make money. I long for the old Amanda Quick whom I read when I first started to read romantic novels. I hope she will appear again.

Rating:
Summary: Nice Sequel to Shady Lady
Review: Amanda Quick fans should love this sequel to Shady Lady. It combines mystery, romance, and historical fiction genres.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Look At All is a better title!!
Review: Being kind, one might refer to this pale work as amusing or divertying...dull, boring, a yawner - if being accurate...ripoff if one wants to make a point.

This is the follow up to the so so Slightly Shady of last year.
All I can say this was this was a big waste of money! And the Quick name is all that will sell this book.

Lavenia Lake and Tobias March partnership-affair was sort of left up in midair at the end of the dullish Slightly Shady, so I had hopes things would pick up in this one. Not so. It takes nearly 100 pages before the pace even begins to move. There is barely a mystery, barely a romance....GRRRRRRRRRRR

After the delightful Summer in Eclipse Bay, JAK seemed back in fit form. So I was really looking forward to this one. But this is about as far from Summer as you can get. There is no sparkling repartee, no romance, at times all the leads do is act silly and argue. What action is there is comes straight for the 'dark and storming night' trite writing.

If you must read this, wait until paperback because this one is definitely NOT worth the price of hardback.

This is a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT to JAK/AQ fans. ...

Sorry, Don't Look Back should have never been published as a hardback, and would have been much better titled Don'T Look!!!!!
I love her writing, but this has to be in a three way tie for her worst book.

...Your fans deserve better than this.

Rating:
Summary: Can one be to much of a "feminist"?
Review: Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Amanda Quick's works, but this time I was left feeling so-so. The main character, Lavinia Lake is a woman on her own, determined to be utterly independent. I applaud an author who makes a female character who has her own mind, especially in a setting such as this, when the burgeoning dissatisfaction with traditional feminine roles is starting to show. Unfortunately this time through, Lavinia uttered her need for independence one to many times. Being browbeaten as a reader with this idea nearly every chapter takes it's toll.

With that huge venting aside the book was enjoyable. It is delightful to see Lavinia and Tobias' feelings deepen and mature as their partnership continues. I do look forward to the next book and hope that a balance can be found between independence and annoyance.

Rating:
Summary: Quick to Avoid
Review: Don't Look Back was my first Amanda Quick novel. I am going to avoid this author from now on, due to the flat plot line and lackluster mystery. I can say, however, that I was intrigued with every character that was introduced in the book and because of this, I was pushed to finish reading it. I would like to see these characters in a more compelling storyline.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Look Back
Review: I din't like these characters in the first book. Didn't need to see them in a second. Expected more from all her latest. They are not holding my interest as the earlier novels did. Will probably continue to purchase Krentz novels, but will not rush out as I used to.

Rating:
Summary: Same old, same old
Review: I found this latest Lake & March installment, DON'T LOOK BACK to be utterly boring, a real sleep-inducer. I agree with one of the previous reviewers who wrote that the characters are not very likeable. In fact they have become measurably duller, dimmer, shallower, and crabbier since their last appearance in SLIGHTLY SHADY. There is NO tension in this book and the dialogue is imminently forgettable. I was particularly disappointed because I thought that JAK was finally getting her groove back with SUMMER IN ECLIPSE BAY, which was really pretty good.

For those of you who have been reading JAK forever (like me), DON'T LOOK BACK is a tepid, uninspired reworking of her Guinevere Jones series published in the late 80's with a change of setting and the now de rigueur, motif-du-jour (hypnotism & Gallo-Roman antiquities).

I hate to say it because I hate to think that I've continued to pay top $$$ for JAK's mediocre hard covers all these years ... but the last book that she wrote that really zinged me was "The Golden Chance" in 1992. Just about everything else since then has been a gimmicky, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, self-parody of one or more of her earlier writing successes.

Recommendation to new readers: Skip the recent stuff and find JAK's back list previous to 1993. You won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: What an awful role heroine
Review: I hated the woman - and the man was soooo patronizing. I liked the other book but MY WORD what happened to her?????

Rating:
Summary: Needs a pinch of something to make this book cook!
Review: I have all of the Amanda Quick novels. I am one of the first in line to buy them. I look forward to each new release. I looked forward to this one. I read it in one afternoonand when I had finished - felt very let down.

I knew Quick was going for a series set in historic England. It could work. But she needs to develop the mysteries a bit more, add some tension - not just silly arguments, and make the characters more personable. I was getting tired of Lavinia's attitude, tired of March's dithering, and the secondary characters were mere puppets in this book. It was missing something. The things that Lavinia worried about seemed silly, the love scenes seemed silly not really passionate, and though we glimpsed the steel and the tenderness in March, overall he did not seem as appealing as other Quick heroes.

I wanted more from this read and did not find it. I guess I will re-read her earlier Regencies.