Sweet Liar (Angel)

Rating:
Summary: This is a great romance novel.
Review: Samantha Elliot arrived in New York to search for her grandmother, alone, her parents dead, and her divorce final. Her father left her an apartment in the city and asked Michael Taggert to look after both Samantha and the apartment. Her father's dying wish was for Samantha to find out what had happened to her Grandmother. She had dissapeared from Sam and her father's life when Samantha was a baby. The relationship that has developed between these two people is very awkward because it changes very rapidly. At some points they will become very close to eachother and will then suddenly be distant. Michael agrees to help Samantha find her grandmother and she finds herself falling in love with him, but will it stay that way or will it change? Read this great romance novel to find out what happens. I thought this was a great book. I enjoyed reading it because the romance was so great, and I enjoyed the humor. I would often get to a point where I didn't want to set the book down. I would reckomend this book to people who like great romance adn humorous novels.

Rating:
Summary: Divine hero. So-so story
Review: This book is very sweet. I'm not sure where the 'liar' came from unless you think that holding things back from someone, is considered lying.

Anyhow, this book is actually a great read. While I wouldn't actually say it's fast-paced, since it did get kind of winding half-way through; especially when Sam repeatedly pushes Mike away from her despite him being such an exceptionally sweet guy to her. Well, the reasons for those are revealed and they did satisfy me, but I felt that Ms. Deveraux took too long to get there. Mike is a dream as the heroine of the story, no tempers, no alpha-male arrogance or indifference. I seem to be using this word a lot for this book, but its fitting: sweet. Mike Taggart is very, very sweet towards Samantha. And that's something I always enjoy to read in a romance novel. How she treats him, is another matter and at the end is justified, so I can't grumble too much about that.

One thing that bugged me was the ending. One thing in the book: Sam's gone through so much crap in her life that she cannot bring herself to cry anymore. I was waiting for a touching, moving ending that when she would, it would be a big part of the story. I was a bit dissapointed when it was short and rushed but not too displeased by it to be turned off the whole book. And the revelation of her grandmother's life was written poorly and it wasn't of much intrest in the book itself. It just seemed like a common interest to bring Mike and Sam closer, by way of more interaction if they had a base for it.

Overall, this book was one of Deveraux's better books. Not by any means another one of her average 'nice' one or her very memorable ones, but somewhere up there. The storyline was just OK, but the interaction between characters and dialogue was delightful to read. Sweet, and infinately romantic throughout.


Rating:
Summary: Abridged audio version
Review: What a wonderfully daring beginning to a romance novel! Although the abridgement of this book in audio form left some holes in the story and I found myself rewinding it toward the end to see if I had missed something, I must say that the reader, Mel Harris, was absolutely top class. The storyline was captivating from the start, although toward the end, it got a little confusing (chalk that up to the abridgement). The charming part of this story was watching (or hearing) Samantha discover herself in the big city of New York. The hero has an interesting connection to his new tenant and Michael's caring for her, both as her new guardian (interesting since she was in her late twenties) and as her new and only friend in the big city, lends a sweetness to both characters. Mike's powerful connections and money play well to Sam's transformation into a butterfly. And eventhough Sam had been married for a short time once before, it is Mike who teaches her what true love really is all about. A romantic love story and an intriguing mystery are a winning combination for the author. I can also recommend this audio version to younger readers.