Suspense

Um, the romancey bits were decent if a little fast-moving but seriously, the bear's p.o.v.? It's a bear, we don't need to know its motivations. I'm not even sure one can say a bear has motivations. ( )

This was pretty good. I liked the couple a lot and loved watching them come together. I didn't care for the chapters dedicated to the thoughts and movements of the killer and the bear. The killer, I could understand. But giving a voice to the killer bear was a bit too much for me. Other than those parts, I liked the book a lot. ( )

Reread 1/30 2016 Enjoyed this just as much the second time.


First read - November 8, 2011.
Other than the odd pages we spent in the POV of the bear and 5 or so pages in the head of an NPC who immediately got eaten by said bear, I really enjoyed this book.

It was more an action survival book than anything else. The heroine had guts and then some. She had moral fiber to know when to sell out her property and business and she was super tough crawling down a mountain in a storm with a broken ankle to get away from a murderer and a maneating bear.

I enjoyed the interlude with her and the super hot hero. I loved the way he was written, rough around the edges and with a potty mouth. I loved how he took care of her. Maybe we could have know a little more about him but I felt like we knew enough.

The bad guy was realistic. I always appreciate when an author chooses to use something other than a terrorist or a serial killer as a bad guy. And the bear... well let me just say that even though I live in Missouri where black bears are only now making a comeback and moving north, I am scared sh**less of bears. I think I read too many "Drama in Real Life!" stories in the Reader's Digest over the years. So it didn't take much to convince me that the bear was the bigger evil.

The writing was fast pace and absorbing as usual with Ms. Howard. She paints extremely clear word pictures and her stories are always alive in the reader's head. The only thing that was not totally in active voice was the epilogue which seemed almost as if a narrator was telling us "and so gentle reader, our story draws gently to a close...." Minor quibble, that.

If the bear POV put you off, I say go back and give it another try. There's only the one longish scene at the beginning and 2 brief paragraphs further in. ( )

A good listen. Not my usual book, about being chased by a black bear, but I also enjoyed the tender side of this story. There were slight repeats of words and phrases. I haven't struck that before and perhaps it is more noticeable in an audiobook, but it clanged, It might have been for emphasis, but overall, I felt the book needed some disciplined editing and could have been better if it was '"clipped". But the suspense was well written, not just with the dangerous parts but with the evolving relationship between Angie and Dare. (This book appears twice in the catalogue and I noticed there are lots of reviews under the other masthead, which is blank whereas this is the cover of the edition I listened to.) ( )