Bad Moon Rising

Rating:
Summary: Bad Moon Rising is a Fantastic Read!
Review: This is one of Ms. Sutcliffe best yet!

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put it Down!!
Review: This was my first Katherine Sutcliffe book and boy did i love it. It had everything I look for in a book and the only problem was didn't want to put it down but I had to!

Holly Jones is back in New Orleans after four years of living on the run to help her best friend/foster sister Melissa escape a serial killer who was targeting prostitutues. Supposedly the serial killer was captured, tried and put to death for the killings but suddenly, two prositutes have turned up dead and the serial killer's signature style is to strong to dismiss.

[...]P>If you like romantic suspense and/or Katherine Sutcliffe you will love this book. The chemistry between Holly and J.D. absolutely sizzles. The mystery of the killer's true identity (and many other secrets) is kept until the very end--there were so many possibilities but not one clear choice. The secondary characters are well defined and written into the story. I highly recommend this book--hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Too...
Review: Too creepy, too rushed, too pat. Not enough romance, not enough development of the hero's relationship with others, and not enough exploration of the process of picking up the pieces of one's life after great loss and moving on. I am a big Katherine Sutcliffe fan (except for a couple of her books), and after Darkling I Listen, I was expecting great things from this one. Maybe I expected too much.

J.D. Damascus lost his wife and their two children several years ago, when they were brutally murdered. Although it's been a long time, he just can't seem to get himself past the devastation, and has gone from a prominent, on-the-rise attorney to bouts of depression, representing prostitutes and giving up on life in general.

Holly Jones is convinced something bad has happened to her best friend Melissa. Trouble is, no one will believe her, or bother too much over a missing streetwalker. But recent events in the seedier areas of the Quarter seem a little too familiar to J.D. Damascus, who agrees to help her look for her friend... and possibly trap a killer.

What worked in this book:
1) the use of New Orleans was very well done as a backdrop. It wasn't too "every day is Mardi Gras and everyone says chere in every sentence" overdone, and yet the personality of the city did color the work. It wasn't completely ignored after the first paragraph, as some authors are wont to do (I hate that).

2) Holly's past was very original in a romance novel, and I enjoyed the issues it raised as far as the dynamics of her relationship with J.D.

3) A rich cast of characters, so that the villain was not readily apparent (not to me, anyway).

Here are my problems with the story--The villain's crimes were just a little too graphic; I'm not squeamish, but there are certain mental images I DON'T want to have when I'm reading a romance novel. Also, J.D. has a sister-in-law who's clearly in love with him, and he acknowledges that he knows this, without ever putting his foot down and setting some boundaries--why??? His brother and he have a highly antagonistic relationship, and we were never really told why. Their father, who seemed to be the original impetus for some of their behavior, was completely absent as a character in the book. Also, although Holly and JD are great people separately, after reading Bad Moon Rising I still don't know why they're together--I don't think they know, either. Beyond the de rigueur sexual attraction, I think Holly was just happy not be alone, and JD was glad to have someone clean up his apartment, or something like that... Never mind that for the last several years he's been so overwrought with grief that he's barely able to function, he meets Holly and all of a sudden the loss is bearable!!!

Bottom line, there was too much focus on mystery, and too little on actual romance, a new trend in the genre that is beginning to worry me.

Before I buy a book, I usually check out what others have had to say about it. This time I feel that all the positive reviews are apt to lead potential readers a little astray, so I thought I'd add my two cents. If you want to read some of the best Katherine Sutcliffe has to offer, be sure to read My Only Love, Dream Fever and Devotion.