Rating: Summary: Surprised at how much I enjoyed this book Review: I have not read a book so good in years!! I could barely put it down. I wanted more after it was over and plan on buying "Lunch" as soon as possible. Karen Moline uses words in ways I could never imagine and I really cared for her characters! I listened to it abridged on audio first and then read the book about two years after and enjoyed it even more!
Rating: Summary: Sophisticated. Review: I loved the descriptions of the characters and the scenery throughout the entire book. Ms. Moline makes you feel as though you`re part of it all. The mystery, the secrets. Definitly intriguing!
Rating: Summary: Wonderfully kinky Review: I LOVED this book. I sat down with it on a Friday night and read straight through to Sunday. Great fantasy, great kinky sex. Just a damn good read
Rating: Summary: Summer suprise of sweet revenge Review: I read Belladonna as an accident and the results were a complete surprise. I picked it up as a "light" read for the summer (after a spring of slogging through dense academic text) and came away with an irresistable urge to concoct obsession-laced revenge plots, filled with beauty, deceit, and a checkered past.As I read, it reminded me of the Count of Monte Cristo(which the plot of Belladonna borrows nicely)and some sinister works of Poe. Add to that exquisite sensuality... A perfect summer read with enough depth to keep you engaged through the final pages. Once in a while you find a book that surprises you, captures you, and takes you on a trip of the imagination. Belladonna proves an excellent tour guide. Moline is a structured, sassy writer who knows how to tell a story and provides a story well told.
Rating: Summary: Weak potion Review: I really did not enjoy this novel at all--surprising, since I absolutely loved Moline's first novel, "Lunch." I thought the story was too slow and the plot far too convoluted. Beyond that, I felt the sadomasochism went far too far. I hope Moline goes back to the type of story she did in "Lunch" for her next effort.
Rating: Summary: 'Bella ' 'Donna Review: I really had to struggle with a rating for this one, the first three quarters are just so deliciously trashy and then everything suddenly falls apart. The problem is the setup is so motivating and the story so much fun to read you can't help but be let down by the cop out of an ending. Belladonna's imprisonment- despite its indiscreet lifting of ideas from 'The Story of O'- escape, and years in Italy are fine and dandy, but things really heat up when she relocates her 'family' to New York. The club, where status means nothing and the rich seem oblivious to the fact that they are being mocked, sizzles with subterfuge and random acts of revenge. Though I could have done without Bella's torment of her cousin, who hadn't really done anything consciously wrong all those years ago when Bella wound up a sex slave. When Bella picks up and moves down South, that's your cue to put down the book. The wrap up doesn't live up to its promise in any way shape or form. The pieces just come together so badly and with much predictable, silly coincedence involved. I wanted a slam bang 'vengeance from the heavens' sort of end, but I would have been able to accept one where Bella never finds the answers she so desperately seeks nor the man who inflicted so much torture on her. Life seldom leads to perfect, tied-with-a-bow finishes and it would have been better to have no closure then the ridiculous and disappointing one with which we are presented. A solid three and half star read, perfect for just about any situation.
Rating: Summary: I enjoyed reading Belladonna Review: I truly enjoyed this book as told through the descriptive eyes of the enuch Tomasino. Engrossing, vivid characters, it keeps the pages turning.
Rating: Summary: What a page turner! Review: I'd just gone through a spate of books I could not sink my teeth into, then I picked up Belladonna and was hooked, read it over one long weekend. It's the kind of book that makes you glad your Saturday night date had to cancel: wonderfully twisted characters, great plot, amazing scenes. I can't wait for Moline's next one.
Rating: Summary: Belladonna and Aconite Review: Im only halfway thru this book, but already Im enjoying it and I find myself hopelessly sinking into its psychosexual mesmerism. The book is dark, intense, and very abstract. The age old cliche of a woman scorned is brought into a new light here. Belladonna proves as deadly as her namesake.
Rating: Summary: If you like the exotically erotic kink,read this book Review: In 1935, American Isabella Ariel Nickerson and her cousin are visiting London. They are invited to a masquerade party that seems to have all the makings of a great time for the innocent Midwesterner. Instead of the social event of the season, Isabella is abducted and sold off at an auction hosted by the members of the Club, a bunch of wealthy, sadomasochistic aristocrats. Her time with the hedonsitic Club members turn the sweet Isabella into the ferocious Belladonna. Over the next four and half decades in America and Europe, Belladonna enacts vengeance on the individuals who ruined her life. BELLADONNA is a kinky novel of vengeance starring a fascinating lead protagonist whose motives are made very clear by author Karen Moline. Though the story line moves briskly through five decades, it fails to leave the reader with a whiff of a feel for that decade. Still, anyone who enjoys a novel filled with kink (without the Kinkster) and a avenging female set in erotic/exotic places, BELLADONNA is the book to take you there. Harriet Klausner
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