Overall Rating: 3.95
Action: 4.0 / Emotion: 2.5 / Romance: 3.5 / Sensuous: 1.5 / Suspense: 3.5 // Laughter: 0 / Tears: 0

The Rivals: 3.95:
Found this book to be entertaining, intriguing, and enjoyable simply because Joan Johnston's storytelling style holds appeal. The lack of character development for the main hero and heroine was minimal, so the book was not as good as it could have been.

Hero: 2.0:
Drew DeWitt: The only reason a reader would know much about Drew was if they had read The Price first. Johnston spent more time describing him and his personality in that book than she did in this one. The best thing about Drew in this book was the way he interacted with Sarah's kids.

Heroine: 2.0:
Sarah Barndollar: Sarah, too, was not as richly developed as the heroine of a romance novel should have been. Johnston, did, however, realistically portray the difficulty that Sarah was experiencing as a single mother, who was working long hours to support her three children.

Secondary Hero: 3.0:
Clay Blackthorne; Johnston began fleshing out Clay's personality, the one Blackthorne child that was, basically, omitted from the first three books of the series. It was impossible to not be interested in this conflicted man, who was being groomed for the White House. However, Johnston really should have made him a much younger, inexperienced man when he was seduced by Libby nineteen years ago.

Secondary Heroine: 2.5:
Libby Grayhawk: Again, Johnston began developing Libby's personality and telling her backstory. It is obvious that Libby has some issues with her father and regrets betraying Clay, but it was difficult to identify with her on a deep level because her character development was minimal.

Story Line: 3.0:
Johnston tried to put too much into this book. Too much of the story concentrated on introducing Clay and Libby instead of developing Drew and Sarah as they searched for Kate Grayhawk, who had been kidnapped, and for Tom Barndollar, who had gone missing.

Action: 4.0:
Johnston included plenty of action to keep the adventurous aspect of the story at a high level, involving {a} searching for area girls being kidnapped and killed; {b} skiing in dangerous avalanche-prone areas, {c} being blackmailed and framed for murder, and {d} kids getting into trouble while looking for their missing father.

Emotion: 2.5:
Johnston spent so much time detailing the history and continuing the relationship between Clay and Libby, that she failed to develop Drew's and Sarah's personalities to a level that prompted a deep emotional connection. Thus, Johnston failed to move the reader to tears or laughter.

Romance: 3.5:
Johnston did a great job of keeping the romance aspect of the story front and center. Any time Drew and Sarah were near each other, the awareness arced between them. The same was also true whenever Clay and Libby were together. And both couples were together during the entire book.

Sensuous: 1.5:
Johnston included obvious passion in the love scenes between Drew and Sarah, but the sizzling sensuality was minimal.

Suspense: 3.5:
Johnston did a great job of switching between characters to increase the suspenseful aura of the story. While Johnston did not keep the reader on pins and needles, wondering what was going to happen next, she did keep one curious about how she was going to resolve all the issues that were being included in the story: {1} Kate's kidnapping, {2} Tom missing, {3} Clay and Libby's relationship, {4} Clay and Jocelyn's relationship, and {5} King and Blackjack's confrontation.

Secondary Characters: 4.5:
One of Johnston's best gifts is including secondary characters that really draw interest and greatly enhance the entertainment value of the book. The intriguing secondary characters included: {1} Katherine "Kate" Grayhawk, {2} North Grayhawk, {3} King Grayhawk, {4} Nathan "Nate" Barndollar, {5} Brooke Barndollar, {6} Ryan Barndollar, {7} Jackson "Blackjack" Blackthorne, {8} Jocelyn Montrose, and {9} Morgan DeWitt.

A more in-depth, detailed, spoiler-ridden review of The Rivals appears at Wolf Bear Does Books (http://goo.gl/GKmiYA). ( )

This is the first book I’ve read by Joan Johnston. I read it not knowing it is book #5 in the Bitter Creek Series. I would like to read the previous books in the series before giving, The Rivals a serious review. I enjoyed the basic plot, But I thought there were to many characters. The main characters were supposed to be Drew and Sarah, but the secondary characters Libby and Clay almost took over from Drew and Sarah’s story. The title; The Rivals, I assume refers to the Grandfathers and their whole history. Not a bad book overall. I definitely need to read the rest of the series to get a closer take on the history of all there characters. ( )