Anne Stuart

Anne Stuart is one of my favourite authors and last week I read 2 of her series books.

BREAK THE NIGHT I started it because Rosario mentioned it on her blog and coincidentally I had just received it from a friend.

I checked Anne Stuart's site and just couldn't resist picking it up:



Break the Night (1993) was Anne’s take on Jack the Ripper for the beginning of the short-lived Silhouette Shadows line.

I pulled back on Break the Night, for the simple reason that I knew I couldn’t carry off my original thought. I wanted the hero to be the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, and be horrified by his past life, but there was no way I could make it work. Instead, he has visions of the murder scenes from 100 years ago and is afraid he was Saucy Jack himself. The heroine is reincarnated as well, and the same drama plays out all over again in LA, where the sky turned red when it rains.

I really enjoyed it, it had a gothic atmosphere and the characters were interesting. I think you get to know the hero better than the heroine although at first it seems she will be the main character. When they first come together it's probably as much from lust as from desperation and it worked for me.

This particular hero was not as cold and remote as some of her better known ones. His inicial actions seem to endanger the heroine but he actually wants to protect her and in fact starts accompanying her everywhere to do just that... He is still very tortured which I think is a trait most Anne Stuart's heroes possess.
For me it was a B read, maybe not as complex as some of her full length but a really interesting suspense story.

THE SOLDIER AND THE BABY on the other hand did not work for me. After seeing what she wrote I'm thinking maybe the problem was that I never loved the Rambo movies:



The Soldier and the Baby (1995) Harlequin American. Was originally titled The Soldier, the Nun and the Baby. Another Rambo-romance, the soldier of fortune hero picks up a nun from a Latin American convent, along with baby who was left behind, and tries to get them to safety.

Although we are told this is also a tortured hero I never actually saw evidence of that. He wore a detached atitude as mask that annoyed me more than made me curious.
The heroine, who is going to take vows as a nun, is taking care of an orphan she helped deliver, the hero appears - sent by the baby's father's family - to take the baby to the States. The heroine pretends to be the mother so she can leave the south american jungle where they are and reach America. Of course the hero soon discovers she is not the mother. He is very arrogant, first making assumptions and then by making decisions without telling her. I can see the attraction between such different people but this kind of hero really leaves me cold... I guess I prefer them to be mysterious and maybe even subtly arrogant than bossy and demeaning while openly arrogant.
The ending has been mentioned by some readers as a typical Harlequin ending but you'll have to read it to know why :-)
A C for me because I promptly forgot it after closing the book.

Now I'm looking forward to go and check some of the other titles she mentions as OOP Gems ;-)