Standoff

Rating:
Summary: Not Brown at her best but still a good read
Review: I have been a fan of Sandra Brown from the beginning of her career and witnessed the change of writing style from complete romance to suspense with a little romance fit in. In this book, the whole story revolves around 1 night in a convience store. Which is very odd for Brown. However, she makes it work somehow. Two teenagers fall in love and run away from the girl's multimillionaire father. You see she is pregnant and her father won't allow her to keep it. Deciding to run away to Mexico, they need cash fast so they decide to rob a convience store. In the store is a star reporter who would do anything for a story, a rancher known as "Doc", a older couple on their honeymoon, a couple of Mexicans who are scary, and a loud mouth clerk. Before the teenagers could take off with their loot, the girl goes into labor and the police and FBI are waiting outside. It's a life and death situation. The rancher "doc" and the reporter help the young couple deliver their baby and calm the couple from doing anything that might harm anyone. The reporter discovers that there are more important things than the big story and the rancher learns a thing or two. Read the story to find out the explosive ending. A good book for the beach.

Rating:
Summary: It is either a take-off or stand-off
Review: STANDOFF by SANDRA BROWN is rather objective because it combines two of the elements Ms. Brown juggles with - romance and suspense. This book belongs to that of a take-off or a standoff to the readers - and I personally feel this falls below Ms. Brown 's standard but still manages to convince me that this is an enjoyable read. Ms. Brown is shrewd enough to choose Tiel as the typical heroine as an aggressive news reporter on the pursue of a story to catapult her into stardom. Scarred by the death of her husband, she becomes career oriented and never expected that romance blossoms at a standoff. Dr. Bradley Stanwick makes an irresistible hero who charms and enchants.

However, STANDOFF collapses into a overstretched tale when Sabra and Ronnie, two lovers on the chase by Russell Dendy, are trapped into difficult circumstances like pregnancy and shootouts. It is all too predictible and it becomes hysterically prolonged and monotonous - but Ms. Brown still held grit with her emotional narrative and focused writing. Ms. Brown's suspense element as a result goes to dilution and fails to excite and trepasses into the romance boundary.

The dialogue is disappointingly lame but given the constraints of a standoff, I think even a capable writer like Ms. Brown falls grave to her plot - the romance element was laudable but the others can be,regretfully, struck off.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not great, either
Review: This is a Silhouette novel disguised as a bestseller. I read it in a day, literally. The entire story takes place in a gas station and is very fast-paced. It could easily be an episode of Law & Order.

Tiel is a reporter headed for a vacation. While stopping for a snack, a story accidentially finds her. Of course, there's an Alpha Male involved, but the way the two get together is a bit contrived. I liked this story, despite the sappy happy ending. Just don't expect too much.

Rating:
Summary: formulaic entertainment
Review: This is my first experience with Sandra Brown. Judging from other reviewer's comments, this is not her finest book. Perhaps it's because I just finished Madame Bovary and some other more literary books, but this book was very mediocre. Sure, the plot was fast paced and kept me entertained for a couple of hours. My objection is to the feeling that I'm being manipulated as a reader. For example, many chapters end with the, "Just then, a piercing scream rang out," type of thing that propels you to the next chapter. It's hard for me to believe that this kind of mediocre writing comes from a bestselling author (or should that be considered par for the course from a bestselling author?). The sex scene was SO poorly written that it was painful to read. I felt like I was reading a teenager's English paper under some horrible forced assignment: try to make a sex scene sound sexy. I'm not trying to pick on her, but if you read this outloud to a friend, you'd be laughing so hard you'd never make it through it.

So, decent entertainment I suppose, but not very impressive as fine writing.

Rating:
Summary: Doy!!
Review: This is one to leave by the toilet. Sandra Brown needs to look up the word "prone," which in this book she repeatedly and annoyingly uses incorrectly. Pregnant women are never positioned prone. Duh!! Get a real editor.

Rating:
Summary: It Wasn't That Bad!
Review: Whew, you guys are cold-blooded in your reviews of this book! Sure, it's not her best work and it was hastily written, but I found it entertaining. Predictable up to a point...I was certainly surprised at the *twist* thrown in regarding the Mexicans. (I do not agree, by the way, with a previous reviewer who found her writing racist. If you have read other Sandra Brown novels you know that she is an "equal opportunity" character writer. Very diverse and very fair in her descriptions.)

Yes, the love story between Tiel and Doc was predicitable. Again, if you know Sandra Brown you know that she is renowned for her steamy, explicit sex scenes! The men are always, tall, dark and handsome as well as well endowed and equipped with sexual prowess. So, that's to be expected.

Don't give up on Sandra Brown. Read "The Witness" for a riveting read. "Up in Smoke" ain't bad either.