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Phantom Waltz

Phantom Waltz

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not a fan
Review: Catherine Anderson thanks a nurse who helped her with her research for this book. Unfortunately, that seems to be the extent of her research. If Ms. Anderson had actually talked to paraplegics, I think she would have written a very different book. Are we really to believe that an educated, independent, ostensibly adjusted and self-aware woman moves back to her home town, only to be coddled by her over-protective family? Obviously so, since the heroine instantly falls in love with an equally over-protective man. The descriptions of a paraplegic's struggles and frustration are highly clinical, used simply as the vehicle for driving the conflict in the romance: the heroine doesn't believe that she could ever satisfy someone as a wife and partner. Come on! The heroine's willingness to give control over to Ryan from the start of their relationship and her total lack of sexual awareness is just plain unbelievable(and insulting). 26-year old Bethany knows nothing AT ALL about sex, leaving it up to Ryan to "educate" her. While Ryan, the book's hero, ostensibly falls in love with Bethany because of her wit and feistiness, Bethany herself doesn't actually demonstrate this anywhere in the book. Far from witty, the dialog is unnatural--more often than not used for clinical explanations of what Ms. Anderson believes are a paraplegic's struggles. The hero, Ryan is hopelessly one dimensional, deciding to marry Bethany after their first date and taking control of their relationship accordingly. Ms. Anderson's focus on Bethany's disability as the plot line provides an excuse to not develop her characters. Bethany is consumed with not disappointing Ryan and Ryan is consumed with showing Bethany that he can care for her. We know nothing about the inner struggles and flaws that might make these characters real, sympathetic, and actually likable. The romance between Bethany plays out as the traditional convention of helpless female and controlling male, with Bethany's disability serving as the source of her helplessness.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Catherine Anderson's Best Book Yet!
Review: Catherine Anderson, well-known for her unconventional heroines, has created her most unusual yet with Bethany Coulter—a paraplegic and the love interest of Ryan Kendrick, brother of Rafe Kendrick from BABY LOVE.

This book is totally character driven, is much spicier sexually than books I usually read, has virtually no plot other than the relationship between the hero and heroine--- and yet, I couldn’t put the book down once I started.

Ryan, who had had his share of love interests throughout the years is in his early 30s and ready to settle down. Seeing his brother’s happiness after marrying Maggie, Ryan would like some of that same happiness for himself. When he sees lovely Bethany Coulter sitting at a computer at the farm parts store owned by her father, he is immediately lovestruck. He already decides he wants to ask her out – when she notices that the chair she is sitting in is a wheelchair. Bethany had been paralyzed from the waist down in a barrel racing accident eight years previously.

Bethany at first tells Ryan a gentle no, but Ryan refuses to take this no for an answer and finally wears down her resolve. They go on a first date to a tractor pull but first, finding out her interest in horses, takes her out to his ranch to see his newborn colt. ...

One of the most unusual secondary characters in the story is a friendly bull named T-bone, who had been sickly as a young calf, and Ryan had taken such a liking to him that he refused to have him castrated. When he makes friends with Cleo, Bethany’s cat, the picture of this cat, sleeping on the back of this enormous bull, makes for an unusual scene to say the least.

Readers of BABY LOVE will enjoy being re-acquainted with the main characters from that book including Rafe, Maggie, her sister Heidi, her mother Helen, their son Jaime, and new baby daughter Amelia.

Anderson has written yet another page turner. Her unusual heroines (a deaf heroine, abused heroine, a heroine accused of murder) and storylines have become her hallmark – she risks a lot here in creating such an usual heroine. But she does it with finesse and style, never making Bethany a character to be pitied but instead a strong woman with a life of her own, becoming more than she ever dreamt she could be. All combine for a book readers should be putting at the top of their reading list for the summer of 2001.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: FABULOUS, ROMANTIC--AND LONG OVERDUE!!
Review: I absolutely loved this book and totally agree with other reviewers that it is one of the most romantic books that I've read in a long time. As the close friend of a female paraplegic, I also found it to be very true to life. Run, don't walk, to buy this book. It's about time someone tackled this subject. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and when you read the last word, you'll sigh with blissful satisfaction. Definitely a keeper!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A 6 Star story on 5 Star scale
Review: I found this story to be one of the best I have read in along time. Although it helped Ryan was wealthy( this is fiction after all), what he really gave her was unconditional love and acceptance. I found the couple to be endearing, and the story deliciously romantic. What Ryan gave Bethany was far more than money could buy. The added characters of Sly, T-Bone and Tripper were a delight. As was the scene in the bar.

Ms Anderson's writing is fresh and not cluttered with information the reader doesn't need. For me this one is destined to be the book of 2001 because it takes romance fiction to a new higher level.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Compelling, sweet and heartwarming
Review: I had a very hard time putting this book down and hated to say goodbye to the characters when it ended. They had come to feel like family. Catherine Anderson has a true gift - she can create deep emotion better than most other romance genre authors. Her plots are compelling and tender. If there is a quirk, it is that the hero was seemingly without flaw in his pursuit of his lady. He moved heaven and earth to woo her, but all that selflessness was just a tad unbelieveable. However, we can all use an uplifting fairy tale now and then. This is escapism at its finest. Keep 'em coming Catherine - you have a very devoted fan in me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Compelling, sweet and heartwarming
Review: I had a very hard time putting this book down and hated to say goodbye to the characters when it ended. They had come to feel like family. Catherine Anderson has a true gift - she can create deep emotion better than most other romance genre authors. Her plots are compelling and tender. If there is a quirk, it is that the hero was seemingly without flaw in his pursuit of his lady. He moved heaven and earth to woo her, but all that selflessness was just a tad unbelieveable. However, we can all use an uplifting fairy tale now and then. This is escapism at its finest. Keep 'em coming Catherine - you have a very devoted fan in me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful Romantic Novel
Review: I LOVED this book. I'm a quadrapeligic. This book's hero is Ryan, Rafe's (Baby Love) little brother. He meets Bethany, a parapelgic, at her father's store, yet he doesn't relize she's handicapped until after he's asked her out. He keeps the date out of pity but finds out she's his perfect girl. The only problem, sex. It's really cute he's the one chasing her. All around I loved it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful Romantic Novel
Review: I LOVED this book. I'm a quadrapeligic. This book's hero is Ryan, Rafe's (Baby Love) little brother. He meets Bethany, a parapelgic, at her father's store, yet he doesn't relize she's handicapped until after he's asked her out. He keeps the date out of pity but finds out she's his perfect girl. The only problem, sex. It's really cute he's the one chasing her. All around I loved it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Actually 4+ - I wanted it to continue
Review: I trully enjoyed this book. I judge a good book by how I feel at the end, and for this one I didn't want it to end. I wanted to read on and see how Bethany and Ryan lived their lives. Most of us read romance for the fantasy of it; love at first sight, a can do hero that makes dreams come true, etc. This book has that. True some things are not up to fact, but this IS fiction. I do agree with some of the negative reviews, in that the heroine was too helpless for a supposed L2 spinal cord injury. And I doubt Ryan would really be wrestling with a power drive WC with such ease (300+ pounds, I don't think so!) But I enjoyed the romance and fell in love with Ryan early in the book. It was fun and heartfelt!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very enjoyable and different
Review: I'm a longtime romance reader and, as Catherine Anderson says in her foreward, every now and then I get a little tired with the perfection of the prototype romance characters. With this book Ms. Anderson tries to stand that convention on its head, and succeeds in almost every way.

The heroine, Bethany, is a paraplegic, injured far more than physically over the years because of her accident and the attitudes of people around her. She's wounded, wary and repressed in almost every way. The hero, Ryan, is a perfect romance hero in that he's goodlooking, rich, sensitive, etc, etc, etc. He's almost too good to be true, but Ms. Anderson saves him from being too much a cliche by having Bethany react to him the same way the reader does -- "Can this guy possibly be for real?!" Much to Bethany's delight, he is. And he wants to be in it for the long haul before Bethany does.

The genuine emotion and feeling Ms. Anderson evokes between these two characters saves what could be some really melodramatic scenarios. Aside from a few odd plot points that didn't resonate with me, I really enjoyed spending a few hours getting to know Ryan and Bethany, and watching their love story unfold. I think you will too. Give it a try.


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