Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment!!
Review: As a working professional, I love to spend my hard earned money on a good read. This book was perfect and I strongly recommend it to all.
Rating: 
Summary: BUY!!!
Review: As a working professional, I love to spend my hard earned money on a good read. This book was perfect and I strongly recommend it to all.
Rating: 
Summary: DISAPPOINTING
Review: Coffman is one of those "uneven" authors - her books are either terrific and engaging or disappointing. This book falls in the latter category. The characters are shallow and the story is difficult to care about.I used to buy all her books, then I became more selective. I wish I had passed on this one.
Rating:
Summary: The Fifth Daughter
Review: Disjointed....Both characters are kind of pathetic. Maresa is so non-introspective (even though the author admits this and uses it to define the character) that you wonder if she ever thinks about anything. And Percy is a wimp. He never gets over or grows out of a crush he had on a self-absorbed child. I was very disappointed with this book. I have really enjoyed books by this author in the past.
Rating:
Summary: a snorer!
Review: don't bother with this book unless you have trouble sleeping.
no romance no plot no character development. no good!!
Rating:
Summary: This book points out the need for the Zero star rating
Review: I have never read Ms. Coffman's books before and thought I would give this a shot - I wish someone had shot me instead! I read the first 50 or so pages, skipped a few hundred, read another page, and then gave up. The dialogue was terrible, the plot uninteresting, and the characters could not have been more boring and bland. I am a voracious romance reader and this book is one of the worst examples of the genre I have read in a very long time.
Rating:
Summary: Not your standard romance novel, life is more complicated!
Review: I just finished reading this book and opened my Amazon file to see if I could find more by this author. This is the first book I have read by Ms. Coffman and the style of writing intrigues me. This is definitely not your standard romance novel. Characterization is indirect and we are given insight into the characters thoughts and confusion. My experience in my only really serious relationship is very similar to the description here. I grew up in North Dakota and my best childhood friend and neighbor was the man I later married. For most of my childhood, he was between a friend and a brother to me. He is the first boy I saw naked, he told me where babies came from, and he is literally in every important memory of my childhood. If my experience is not unique (and afterall there is nothing new under the sun), Merisa's confusion is very real. There was an element of incestousness about this kind of relationship. Like Merisa, I could not understand what I felt and denied that I cared (loved) him as a lover for a long time. He figured it out much earlier. Like the main character, I also bounced around in confusion from one relationship to another with men. And like the main character, I kept coming back to my "friend" for solace when each of the relationships foundered. I knew those men weren't right for me, but couldn't figure out why. I just had no room for another man but I couldn't admit it even to myself. If I confessed my feelings I might lose my best childhood friend. If he didn't feel the same, would I lose him totally? Would we be embarassed to see each other? It was so confusing that I spent a lot of time frantic with confusion and self disgust, I honestly couldn't understand what was wrong with me. This is the relationship that is described in The Fifth Daughter. I think that only someone who has experienced this sort of love can understand this book. Our relationship was finally able to go forward after some heartbreaking years of separation and confusion (and the death of my own father.) In Merisa's case, she had to be totally separated from her culture and out of space to see the truth of it. Another book with a similar theme is The Annunciation by Ellen Gilchrist. I think she was awarded the National Book Award although I don't know if it was for that book. Love is not all straightforward and clear. If you feel it and feel it isn't right, it can take a very tortuous path.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!!
Review: I read the mixed reviews of other readers, but since I generally like Elaine Coffman's books I decided to give this one a try. Big mistake! I grew to hate the main characters and frankly couldn't care less if they did ever get together. (I secretly wished that Percy would get himself a back bone and finally give her the boot.) She was selfish and vain and he was bland. I forced myself to finish this by thinking that it had to get better... but believe me it didn't! In reading the spotlight reviews of this book, I must add that I am educated, well-read and a lover of literature and romance but I still didn't like this book, don't consider it written by a literary genius, or that it should be compared to Gone with the Wind! What this book needs, is a good editor to chop off at least 100 pages, liven up the dialogue and light a spark to whatever chemistry there's supposed to be between Percy and Maresa.
Rating:
Summary: I am forced to give it one star.
Review: I was so looking forward to reading this book and in fact, when I bought it I was reading another that I finished with hasty anticipation of The Fifth Daughter. I was misled by this book. First, Elaine Coffman wrote The Italian, which I loved, so I expected much more when I read this. Second, on the back of this book it says it is a stunning love story and on the binding it advertises itself as a historical romance. Where is the romance? And unless I've missed something, how is this a stunning love story? Throughout the entire book, Percy appeared only a handful of times and then he was nothing but a doormat for Maresa. She was nothing but a spoiled brat who treated him horribly. I'm not sure why he even bothered with her because she had not one redeeming quality about her. She was immature and selfish. I could have done without the history lesson and maybe a little more romance. Napoleon and his escapades were constantly crammed down my throat and I began to wonder if this was his story and a story about the war and that of Percy and Maresa's romance was nothing but a subplot. I did read the entire book and agree with the reviewer that said the writing was choppy. The dialogue was bad. And the much anticipated love scene amounted to a couple sentences. As much as I enjoyed The Italian, this book wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: I've enjoyed several books by Ms. Coffman was looking forward to a new story by her. I was VERY disappointed with the flat characters and the flat story telling of this book. Maresa is a very hard character to like because of her exceedingly negative and childish personality. Percy is passive and wimpy and you just want to give him a big kick on his butt for letting Maresa run all over him!! And I was overly disappointed with Ms. Coffman's writing! It was almost as if somebody else wrote it and put her name on the cover, because the story did not flow, nor were any of the descriptions and feeling like her other books. Maybe because the publisher is Mira, and it doesn't have the high standards as Avon or Batam, but this was by far the worst book written by her.
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