Rating: 
Summary: FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC
Review: This was the first book by Sandra Brown I had the pleasure to read. I was up all night because I just could not stop reading it. I have read enough mystery and suspense novels to at least have some sense of how the book will end - this one was a complete suprise. I was shocked and loved it! I buy this book for gifts and give it to anyone I think will enjoy it.
Well worth the time and the money.
Rating:
Summary: never disappointing!
Review: This lady has a wonderful gift in her ability to write wonderful books. How she manages to think up all of her stories amazes me. This book keeps you on your toes till the end. Barrie is a reporter who has made a few mistakes in her previous reporting experiences and is struggling to improve her reputation in her occupation. The president's wife, who lost her baby recently, asks to meet with her on an off the record meeting, much to her amazement. From the meeting, Barrie sees a story on SIDs as the baby belonging to the president and his wife died of it. As she looks into the story, it starts looking like murder instead, and then the story really heats up and doesn't let up until the last page. Just when you think you have it solved another twist shows up and takes you in another direction. Great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Good suspense, not-so-hot romance
Review: Brown's "Witness" is the best romantic suspense novel I have ever read. Because of that, I picked up this one, but it's not up to par. The suspense aspect was gripping, but at the end there were a couple twists which were so far-fetched I felt like I'd been tricked. But I don't want to be overly harsh - the thriller aspect did hold my attention and keep me turning pages, even with its flaws.The romance, however, was bleh. Her heroine, Barrie, is annoying and not too bright sometimes. When she meets the hero, Gray (who I kept transposing in my mind as Gary throughout the book) [WARNING: This could be considered a mild spoiler] she wanders into his house to take a nap while he's away!! Then, when he gets back, it goes basically like this: G: "What are you doing here?" B: "I've come to see you." G:"Oh, yeah?" - takes off clothes - "Well, how do you like me naked?" - pounces on Barrie- they proceed to have sex. Of course, that's a paraphrase. It actually took four pages. In the fictional time frame of the novel, I'd estimate it took five minutes. SERIOUSLY. Maybe Brown just threw that in because she knew we wouldn't get another real sex scene. But hey, I'd rather have nothing than that! Better to set up the romance than throw in sex for sex's sake! Don't get me wrong, I like steam, but this was just too bizarre. It really turned me off. In the last chapter, of course, the "I love you"s are exchanged. We don't see how or why Gray comes to the conclusion that he loves Barrie, though. Yeah, he obviously thinks she's hot, and they throw in how much he admires her courage....but love? Barrie isn't much better. I'm not really sure why she loves Gray. Because he believes in her? As for character development, you get about a paragraph for poor Gray, and it's pretty standard: [paraphrase] "My parents died...my sister doesn't want to see me...my friends betrayed me...therefore, I don't pursue relationships and instead became a cold-blooded special forces agent." Barrie's professional insecurities are made clear, but her personal ones don't get much deeper than Gray's. Barrie: [paraphrase]"My daddy cheated on my mom so I shy away from men." Thanks, Freud. In Brown's defense, these types of novels are hard to write. It's hard to mix a believable love story into a believable suspense thriller. Who has time to examine their feelings when being shot at? Still, Brown managed it in "Witness." I'll read more of her books in the hopes that she does it again.
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