Into the Night

Rating:
Summary: A quibble
Review: This is the third book of Brockmann's I have read, and I enjoy her intelligent dialogue and strong characters. Mike Muldoon may have seemed too bland to some but I thought he was absolutely charming: funny, self-effacing, loving, good-looking AND NOT ARROGANT. A very nice change. (I'd take him in a heartbeat.) Joan was a little neurotic for my taste but I liked her well enough.

Warning: Spoiler ahead. What I did not enjoy is this: in all three novels I have read, we end up with a long distance marriage. Does the author have trouble with closeness and intimacy? How the heck do you raise a family when the partners live on opposite sides of the country? It's all very well to have women who have important or very meaningful jobs that they don't want to leave (and, realistically, the reader is not expecting the men to leave the SEALs or whatever), but surely there has to be some other creative solution to these problems? Love by telephone with the occasional weekend in the middle of the country just doesn't do it for me.

Rating:
Summary: Great Non-Sappy Romance!
Review: I'm not entertained by dominant, humorless heros and dithering, emotional damsels-in-distress, so this book was a lovely, refreshing surprise. I relied heavily on other reviews before I purchased this book. I am glad to say that they were pretty much on the money and I loved this book. It has genuinely funny moments and good, flowing dialogue, the characters are extremely sympathetic, and the author did an excellent job of describing people without smarmy dramatics. And I very much enjoyed the older woman issue and how it was handled realistically and with humor. There are a number of secondary characters who are all fascinating and I'm looking forward to reading their stories as I backtrack my way through Ms. Brockmann's series. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a great, easy, and fun read!

Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing :(
Review: Into The Night is Suzanne Brockmann's latest entry in her on(and on and on)going SEALS saga. In this story yet another of her larger than life heroes falls prey to true love while battling a terrorist cell or two along the way. While I've been following this series since its beginning I do believe I may be done waiting with breathless anticipation for the next installment which promises to wrap up character Sam Starret's love story. More on that later.

This time around Lieutenant Mike Muldoon finds love. He's a twenty-five year old sweetie-pie of a man who prefers brainy, older, unconventional looking woman and wants to be loved for more than his drop-dead gorgeous looks. Awww. When the President sends his public relations assistant, 30-ish Joan DaCosta, to scope out his team and view their maneuvers Mike is assigned as her SEAL liaison. He's instantly smitten by the smart, funny, sexy woman and pulls out all the stops to impress her. Unfortunately, Joan insists on thinking of Mike as her "younger brother by a different mother" and refuses to enter into any sort of relationship with him because she feels he's way too young and sexy for an older lady like herself. Instead she tries to set him up with the President's daughter which, of course, backfires in the worst way possible.

Though Joan is intelligent and has a wonderful sense of humor she doth protest too much when it comes to her relationship with Mike. And, as much as I enjoyed their love story I do wish more of the book had been committed to it. Sadly, Mike and Joan's relationship seemed like just another subplot to the many others crowding the book and I didn't experience the closeness to the characters that I have in the previous Brockmann SEAL books. Taking up a whole lotta space was the obligatory World War II flashbacks and the extended glimpses into Mary Lou and Sam Starret's miserable marriage.

This brings me to the ongoing tale of doomed romance between fellow SEAL Sam Starret and Alyssa. Several books back I ached for the couple who were separated just when they'd found true love. Now, I'm just sick and tired of them. In this entry Sam (who married Mary Lou when he discovered she was pregnant with his child a few books back) is transformed into a miserable husband and a neglectful father. He spends the bulk of the story doing nothing but pining away for his Alyssa instead of acting like a real man and asking Mary Lou for a divorce (which would be a blessing for her). A miraculous thing does happen here though. Mary Lou, who was previously an obnoxious, drunken lush, is now a recovering alcoholic and a loving mother who becomes a sympathetic (but still quite needy) character. She struggles to do the right thing and longs for love with a desperation that is almost heartbreaking. Mary Lou is friendless and out of a need for comfort and help battling her want for alcohol she forms a tentative friendship with a kind man of Arab descent despite her initial fear of his looks. Their friendship was genuine and interesting. Too bad I can't say the same for Sam whose appearances were tedious and unsympathetic. At this point Sam is a creep in my book and I could care less if he gets together with Alyssa in a future book.

Also going on is (what seems at this point to be) the token look back in history. Joan's grandmother Charlotte DaCosta looks back to the grief filled year she lost her husband and met a young soldier named Vince during World War II. These glimpses into the past were more of a distraction than anything and I felt jolted out of the story every time they appeared. Normally these flashbacks add richness to the current story but this time they didn't work for me and they didn't seem to mesh with the rest of the story at all.

Finally, unlike Brockmann's previous books, "Into The Night" contains a shockingly small of amount of action (I say this because her books are usually non-stop and are impossible to put down!). As a result, it took me over four weeks to get up the ambition to finish this one despite the great characterization of Mary Lou, the humor threaded throughout and the mostly enjoyable love story between Mike and Joan. In the end this book simply didn't live up to my high expectations for a book written by Suzanne Brockmann.

~ Laurie Shallah

Rating:
Summary: The heroine left much to be desired....
Review: Where to start. This book actually has three stories interwoven. Two of them made sense but the third could have been left out. Story one is about Mike Muldoon and Joan DaCosta. Joan is the press secretary for the President and Mike is the SEAL assigned to show her around the military base and prepare for the coming military demo. Now Mike was an absolute dream. He was handsome, funny and sweet. His character treated Joan so well that I wanted to become a character in the book and take her place. However, Joan left much to be desired. She treated him poorly and he kept coming back. I could NOT see what he saw in her and thats what made it very hard for me to finish the book. Joan always kept backing away from the relationship. If it wasn't the problem she had with the age difference (she's 7 years older than Mike) it was the career thing and the weight thing. I finally just wanted to send her to therapy.

Now the next story is about Mary Lou, Sam and Alyssa which I guess is the on-going love triangle. I haven't read the other books in this series so I felt sorry for Mary Lou even though it appears she trapped Sam into their marriage. This story is interwoven with Mike and Joan because it leads the reader to believe that Mary Lou, who is VERY emotionally unstable, is targeted and manipulated by the terrorists in the story, who are preparing to attack the President. I won't say more because this will take away from the whole story.

Now the third story I saw no reason to have. Its about Vince and Charlotte. It's basically a retro story where Vince and Charlotte have flash backs to their relationship during WWII. I didn't really care about this and will admit that I just skipped those parts.

I took away one star for Joan and one star for the Vince/Charlotte story. Other than that it was well written.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is an excellent book. I have enjoyed the whole SEAL Team Sixteen series. These stories are well thought out and you can really visualize the situations. The characters are in-depth and interesting. The concept of having several stories in one is great. It keeps you so turning the pages.
I look forward to the next book in this series and I do hope there will be several more!
Thanks for writing so well.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but the heroine made me grit my teeth
Review: I like Suzanne Brockman's novels, but I must admit she suffers from "Catherine Anderson (another romance writer) syndrome," i.e., the too perfect guy and the heroine who can't decide whether she wants him. P-u-h-lease!! What is Joan's problem in this novel? Let's be realistic here. Even though I too would have misgivings about the age difference, that wouldn't stop me from grabbing hold of a gorgeous, honest, NICE, loving man like Mike with both hands. Frankly, Brockman really didn't show me what Mike would see in Joan. I mean, there are many women like her who are problem more gorgeous than her and who would love having a guy like Mike drool over them. It just wasn't realistic. After the second time they make love and she still hesitates to commit to a relationship with him, I just couldn't read it anymore. I wanted to find out what happens with Sam, Alyssa, Mary Lou, and her romantic interest (can't remember his name), but I just couldn't stomach the heroine anymore.

All in all, however, I gave it 4 stars because Brockman's writing is good (for a romance novelist), her heroes are drool material, and her plots are interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Lacking, boring, not her usual...
Review: I've read all of Suzanne Brockmann's Team 16 stories, and enjoyed all of them -- except this one. The pace was slow. The story was disconnected. It was too much about boring, pathetic Mary Lou. It contained little, if any, Navy Seal action. Suzanne's books are usually full of action, clever dialog, comaraderie between the Seals (who seldom featured in this novel), and at least some heat. I was disappointed in this one. My advice: skip it and read the previous ones.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it, cannot wait for more!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I think the development of characters that are reoccurring is magic and I think the three intertwining stories are superbly done. The growth of Sam and Mary Lou was well done, and it takes a clever person to un-vilify someone who was not exactly a popular character to begin with. I love the SEAL story lines, and hope there are many more to come yet! It is not often you come across well written military romance/thrillers. The technical aspects are really well done also, and read seamlessly. It is no wonder this author has such a huge following all over the world, even down here in NZ! Cannot wait for the next one!

Rating:
Summary: A "Dog and Pony Show" Not to be Missed!
Review: This was my very first Suzanne Brockmann book, and once I started reading it, I simply couldn't put it down. I was completely enthralled with all four interwoven stories: Joan and Mike, Sam and Mary Lou, Vince and Charlotte (Joan's grandparents), and the plot regarding the "dog and pony show" for the President. The comradarie between and dedication of the members of Team Sixteen was evident throughout the novel and the dialogue between all the characters was witty and fun; so much so, that I found myself often laughing aloud, which is rare for me. I found this book to be a wonderful first-time read, and I can't wait to catch up on the rest of Team Sixteen.

Rating:
Summary: Hoo-Ya, glad they are our side
Review: In the latest installment of the "SEALS's" series Suzanne Brockmann brings us back to some familiar characters. Joan DeCosta is a White House Staffer sent to setup a demonstration of SEAL rescue techniques for a Presidential visit. Experienced in Public Relations Joan is used to being prepared, for almost anything..., except the Team Sixteen liaison, Lt (jg) Mike Muldoon.

In a story that reminds us of the daily risks and bravery of the men and women in today's military, it also shows the human side of these very people who are willing to get the job done, no matter the personal cost. The story catches us up on some old friends and we learn more about the fantastic Team Sixteen. The president is visiting the base, and Joan DeCosta is there set up the visit of the president and his troubling middle aged daughter. What she wasn't prepared for is Lt. (jg) Michael Muldoon, the spit and polished liaison for the SEALS, he is handsome, polite, fearless, decisive and a natural leader, and did I mention gorgeous? Against her will, she is drawn to this younger man, in spite of the danger that seems to be lurking. Will she be able to risk all in spite of the dangerous terrorist attack?

Hoo-Ya, glad they are our side. This story was a page turner, I simply couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen on the next page. Seeing, Sam and Mary Lou's point of view of their relationship was interesting, as to this point, it has been done in Alyssa's viewpoint. Getting to know Mike, after his minor role in Over the Edge was a wonderful and insightful look into the mindset of what it takes to be a SEAL. I was disappointed though to not see Stan mentioned, as his role in Mike's life the Over The Edge was one of his mentor and close friend. This book left me panting in anticipation for the next! It is an excellent read and would recommend it highly.