Rating:  Summary: Maybe not Brown's best but still worth 4 stars! Review: I am a huge fan of Sandra Brown and I freely admit that I enjoy all of her books. Hello Darkness is no exception altho not a 5 star story it is most surely worth 4 stars make no mistake about it! Buy it and judge for yourself.
Rating:  Summary: Not Sandra's Best Work Review: I had read some of the reviews here on Amazon before I purchased the book and so I wasn't totally surprised when the book did not deliver. I agree that the characters were not fully developed. The story was interesting and there were lots of suspects up into the end, but the end was anti-climatical in my opinion. By the time we got to the killer I'd lost interest. I love Sandra Brown's work and will continue to read her books but this one was just a so-so read.
Rating:  Summary: Did Sandra even write this? Review: Like most of the people who have reviewed this book I am a huge Sandra Brown fan. I have all of her books and love her writing style. Having said that, I refuse to believe that Sandra Brown wrote Hello, Darkness. The book is an absymal disaster with horrible character development and a plot that is neither romantic nor suspenseful. As a heroine, Paris is not up to the standards of Brown's past female leads. Jade in Breathe of Scandal, Lara in Where There's Smoke, and Claire in French Silk were all heroines with dimension, substance and plausibility. As a character, Paris seemed stiff, one-dimensional, and fake. I did, however, like Dean. Dean was a character with good qualities and great potential, but it was never realized or explored. The other characters were all sterotypes: The rich party girl, kindly sergeant, teenage boy with an attitude, ex-con trying to reform, etc. The secondary characters in a Brown novel are usually as well-crafted as the leads, yet that is not so in this novel. I hardly knew the characters and had no reason to care about them. The way that the book was written was the provocation for this review. Sandra Brown has never written in this style before. The book is written almost condesendingly; as if the audience is not intellegent enough to read between the lines and catch the nuances in the dialogue. The reasons for every character action are spelled out and the emotions of every character are described, not shown. The style of this book does not sound like Brown's unique style. It sounds like something a college freshman in a writing course could have written. Brown's older books are written with more romance, suspense and character development. This book was not up to par. Bring back books like Envy, Slow Heat in Heaven, and Fat Tuesday!
Rating:  Summary: A Great Romantic Suspense Review: This novel is written at an excellent pace that held my attention from page one. Kept me guessing who the killer was. Just when I thought I'd figured it out, I was wrong. Really enjoyable read and highly recommended.
Rating:  Summary: Romantic suspense novel Review: Paris Gibson is a late-night DJ who works hard to forget her unhappy past. Her fiance was injured in an unfortunate car accident and Paris faithfully visited him in a nursing home until his death. She dispenses friendly advice to her listeners when they call in, but her advice backfires when a girl she talks to decides to break up with her boyfriend. The boyfriend, calling himself Valentino, calls Paris and threatens to kill both the girlfriend and Paris. The police are called in on the case and one of them, Dean Malloy, proves to be a man from Paris's past. Adding to the complications, Dean's rebellious son Gavin has come to live with him and he is soon in trouble with the police. Brown manages to untangle the web she has woven and throws out a lot of red herrings before the eventual murderer is identified. This is not as scarey as some books of this genre, but it's still a pretty good read.
Rating:  Summary: She baaack!!! Review: I love S.Brown's books. I have read all of her books although she last few books had me a little disappointed so I almost did not get this one until I read the reviews (majority rules!!!).I have about 3 chapters left to read and I can't wait to finish them tonight. I have enjoyed this book very much. This is true SB style. I love it!
Rating:  Summary: Sandra Brown Rules! Review: I have long been a fan of Ms. Brown. Although I liked some of her former books better, "Hello Darkness" is still an entertaining read and one worthy of 5 stars, in my opinion. Ms. Brown is the best at romantic suspense and I always look forward to her next book.
Rating:  Summary: would like to give more stars Review: I agree with the last review. This was a great book
Rating:  Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK AND I CAN NOT BELIEVE THE BAD REVIEWS Review: THIS BOOK WAS ONE i COULD NOT PUT DOWN. i LOVED IT.
Rating:  Summary: A letdown Review: I hate to keep doing this. I panned The Standoff because it was really bad, but I thought it was an anomaly. I may have been wrong about that. While Hello, Darkness is definitely a step in a better direction, it is still not up to Sandra Brown's previous standards. I have usually been able to relate to the main female character in Ms. Brown's books, but Paris Gibson remains an unsympathetic, self-absorbed, affected, one-dimensional woman I cannot care about no matter which way I look at her. Ms. Brown doesn't do much to help us flesh her out, when the deepest insights we get into her character are descriptions of her various facial expressions. I was disappointed by the author's use of a method employed by less experienced writers who think the way to mystify the reader and keep them wondering "who done it" is to introduce a whole cast of potential perps, each with his own complete matched set of disturbing childhood baggage, and then play a sort of shell game with the characters - is it this one, how about this one, or is it this one. We jump from inside the head of sexually dysfunctional suspect number one, to the thoughts of porno addict number two, to the subconscious of female abuser number three, to the mind of incest victim number four, to the suspicious behavior of teenage boy number five - did I miss anyone. This certainly saves the author from having to employ her craft and cleverly weave in clues for the reader to follow. But it leaves us as spectators, not participants, as we wait for her to stop the game and lift the final shell. The "Play Misty For Me" plot could have worked (Paris actually plays Misty on her radio show, maybe a nod to the original) but every chance for nail-biting suspense is missed with plot derailments. There is a considerable investment of time made in developing interest in, if not sympathy for Janey Kemp, a modern-day Lolita with her own Sex Club, trashy website, and sicko lover, and whose life is on the line as a 72-hour countdown toward murder begins. Then, just when the suspense begins to accelerate and we reach for our seat-belts, Janey is removed from the picture, almost casually. The whole effect is as anti-climactic as running out of gas on the home stretch of the Indy 500. After that, the book never really recovers from a deadly case of trite. So, here I am again, on the one hand feeling guilty for saying I really hated it, and on the other hand feeling ticked off because I spent full cover price on the hardback. Still love ya, Sandra, but before you publish the next one, get a few people to critique it who are not relatives or friends or business associates.
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