Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I am a huge Janet Evanovich fan and was delighted she has something on the market outside of the Plum series, however, this book was a disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: I Liked it!
Review: I will admit that it was not as good as Stephanie and her grandma, but it was cute and worth the read. As long as you are expecting a fun, quick romance, you won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: As mentioned in the main review, this is an expanded version of a book with the same title written by Ms. Evanovich under the pseudonym Steffie Hall. I've read both books, and while my preference is the earlier version, readers who haven't read that one will surely enjoy this version. The earlier version seemed tighter plot-wise, but the additions made in the new version fall in nicely with the tone of the book.If you like Ms. Evanovich's writing, you will like this book. The dialogue is interesting and witty. The romance/sexual tension is nicely done. I really liked the character of Billie, a divorced mom with two kids who's also an excellent sixth grade teacher. She was a nice change of pace. Nick is one of Ms. Evanovich's classic sexy male lead characters - always a treat. The secondary characters are nicely quirkly (a former beauty queen, professional wrestlers, a pest control professional, a boy genius, etc.), and of course there is an exploding car. Since we have to wait at least a year for a new Stephanie Plum novel, this book will serve nicely to fill the publishing gap.
Rating:
Summary: Improved Full House Blends Two Great Comic Authors
Review: In this "bigger and better" work from the team of Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hugges, Nick Kaharchek and Billie Pierce find their mutual attraction compelling, despite their obvious differences. He is a wealthy playboy polo teacher and she can't ride and bakes cookies and tends her two children. The "full house" results when Nick gets Billie to rent a room to his zany cousin Deedee (who is engaged to a wrestler). Along with DeeDee and another realtive, a genious teen named Max -- who is prone to making bombs -- and a pest man who can't stop the bugs in the neighborhood, and soon you feel right at home in the world of Evanovich. The "tension" comes at first from a pretense that Nick and Billie are also going to marry (supposedly to stop DeeDee from matchmaking) and later from a "mystery" about who is trying to sabotage things. A love triangle with Dheridan Flock seems tangential at best and was probably an addition to the new book that could have been left out. Full House was originally a sweet and simple romance by Janet Evanovich writing under the pen name Steffie Hall. The old version would most likely have disappointed most of her fans- at least those who have followed her recent stellar career. Smart woman that Ms. Evanovich is, she turned to her friend and fellow Loveswept Author Charlotte Hughes, and together they spiffed and polished and added depth. Ms. Hughes, Like Ms. Evanovich, has a wild sense of the absurd, and Hughes does ensemble comedy as well as Evanovich and Seinfeld (cf. HOT SHOT and A NEW ATTITUDE). The resulting book has the best of both authors: the depth, dialogue, and character of Hughes, and the warped slapstick that is the trademark Ms. Evanovich. While the romantic tension is not as well developed as in later Evanovich novels, the plot line is actually more like a mystery (albeit a straightforward one) than is typically the case in her Plum series, and the zany characters are quite memorable, and cry out for a sequel. I was on the edge of my seat for the last 1/3 of the book- and that part is all new material not in the original book. A fun and compelling book, with memorable and loveable misfits and a plot that is much improved from the original --already enjoyable -- romantic comedy.
Rating: 
Summary: bigger but not better
Review: Janet Evanovich is very honest about this book: 'I wrote and published the original in 1989....Charlotte Hughes and I now have made it bigger and better.' Charlotte Hughes may have made it bigger, but she did not make it better. Friends who have read the original smaller version liked it; no one I've talked to has liked this version. The characters are typical Evanovich and delightful; the plot seems to be going along nicely, and then the padding begins. Plot is going in all directions and the charm of the Evanovich books is no where in sight. I bought this book after reading the first four or so chapters; they were a delight. Then the book got boring; I started skipping paragraphs, then pages, then raced on to the improbable ending. My advice: save your money for the new Plum. Don't go here.
Rating:
Summary: Another Evanovich Gem In Disguise
Review: For those of you who may not know it, Steffie Hall is Janet Evanovich's pseudonym. This book is currently out of print but it's scheduled to be reissued in an expanded form in September 2002 after being rewritten by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes. It's a funny and engaging book in its original form, and I'm looking forward to the expanded rewrite. Billie Pierce is the epitomy of a suburban mom. She lives in a well-to-do suburban development, has two kids, is a 6th grade teacher, and is happy being a homemaker. The only glitch in the picture is that Mr. Pierce hit his mid-life crisis at an early age, so for the past four years Billie has been a divorced mom, too. She decides that she needs more exercise in her life, so she signs up for polo lessons, given by Nick Kaharchek, a local polo-playing, horse-farm-owning, millionaire/publisher. When signing up she neglected to mention that while she's been around horses all her life, she's never actually been on one. Needless to say, Nick usually doesn't pursue women of Billie's type, but the air of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that surrounds her is almost more than he can resist. She, on the other hand, can recognize danger when it's staring into her eyes and resolves to keep her distance. Uh huh, yeah, sure. Of course, since this is an Evanovich book, the secondary characters are not bland two-dimensional characters. There's Deedee, Nick's many-times married cousin, who's now engaged to be married to a professional wrestler, and who Nick cons Billie into housing; Frankie The Assassin, a professional wrestler who's Deedee's fiance; Eugene, Nick's precocious cousin who blows things up in order to get his point across; and an assortment of pro wrestlers that Deedee tries to fix Billie up with. This was a fun book with a lot of witty dialogue, well-written scenes and characters, and sexy and humorous romance. Even with the upcoming rewrite, it's a book that's definitely worth finding in its original version.
Rating:
Summary: Wildly disappointing
Review: I am a BIG fan of the Stephanie Plum novels. They are such fun to read, so I decided to try other books by Ms. Evanovich, starting with Full House. The first half of the book was rather vanilla, but not intolerably so. There was little plot, the characters were uninteresting, and the viewpoint was a hodge-podge of omniscient and third person subjective which was so confusing at times, I had a hard time separating truth/fact from character opinion. For someone as well-published as Evanovich, this book was very poorly written. It reads like someone's first novel. When I learned it was one of her earlier works, I thought I could cut her some slack, but to find out this is a re-written version of it -- BLECH. She should have known enough about how to tell a story by now. This book should have been allowed to go quietly out of print. I lost interest half-way through the book, and while I am struggling to force myself through it, I don't think I'm going to make it. The dialog is boring, the characters cardboardy, and the plot has simply died. There's nowhere for them to go. The conflict has just petered out, so it's more like looking in the window of an ordinary person, watching their ordinary daily lives. Yawn. Don't waste your money. Get a Stephanie Plum novel if you want a fun read.
Rating:
Summary: Overstuffed and unbelievable
Review: This book took a lot of patience to complete, and I still can't believe I read the whole thing.
Stuck in midstream without a paddle, it floats between romance, mystery, mayhem and madness. Evanovich's usually quirky characters fly off the believability radar like stealth bombers, unfortunately undetected by my bad book warning system.
What starts out as a rich man, divorced woman love story in a horsey setting, becomes a comedy circus of professional wrestlers, crazy people, insects and endless (and I mean ENDLESS) repetition.
Evanovich and Hughes seem to have forgotten the KISS principle for effective writing, and I would recommend you forget this one.
Amanda Richards, February 26, 2005
(KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Rating:
Summary: Lost Interest
Review: I really look forward to Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" series, so tried "Full House". While the beginning held some interest for me, in getting to know these new characters, the second half of the book just seemed to go down hill pretty fast. Dialog dragged and the characters just weren't fleshed out very well. By the end of the book I found I just didn't care any more and finished it just out of curiosity. There just wasn't any feeling of excitement, and no real sparks between the characters. I was glad it finally ended. Very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: --This is a boring dud!--
Review: FULL HOUSE does not deserve the time it takes to read it. It's not worth the money and I feel annoyed that I even paid for it. The story is stupid and has nothing amusing about it or the characters. I purchased it on a whim because while I was in the store someone mentioned to me that the book took place in my area of Virginia. That was a big mistake! Where it took place didn't really make much difference to the sorry plot. Janet Evanovich is trading on her success with the Stephanie Plum books, and this story has nothing redeeming about it. This is the first time in years that I've purchased something without looking it up and reading the Amazon customer reviews. I apologize to my fellow reviewers.
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