dear isobel

Title: Morning Light Author(s): Catherine Anderson Purchase: Amazon Grade: C+

I read reviews of this book before I bought it and I decided that I would wait to purchase it until I had extra money because most of the reviews were scathing and I found very few intelligent ones that had anything positive to say. Usually that would turn me off completely but I own every single Anderson novel I could get my hands on so I decided to give it a chance. I ended up having the extra money, I bought it and I read it over the next few days.

I should have spent it on something more worthwhile. It’s no surprise that Amazon is offering this book for $4.10 now. It’s not her strongest and it’s a shame because it really should have been good. I liked the concept but the execution was extremely flawed.

The older brother from Sun Kissed’s heroine Samantha Harrigan (I just knew as soon as it was clear Sam had older bachelor brothers we’d be seeing them) Clint is the hero here and his counterpart is Loni McEwan, a girl with psychic abilities. She’s been dreaming about Clint her whole life and gets a shocking flash of a little boy she’s sure is his son lost in the woods and only Clint can save him. Of course, Clint is a stand up Catholic boy and doesn’t believe in psychics.

I was looking forward to the idea of having a hero be somewhat religious and unwilling to believe in the heroine at first. I thought it would be refreshing as a lot of authors just don’t touch on religion at all but they went from not believing to believing very fast and before you knew it, they were in the woods searching. Two days later, they’re engaged.

I have no problem with relationships that move fast. I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Crusie and almost of all her couples get together within a month’s time, if not less (two days is also her record I believe) but I guess I just didn’t believe that Clint and Loni were in love. I definitely think he wanted to sleep with her but I just didn’t get the lifetime love thing that fast.

Of course, that’s not the happy ending. Loni, like a lot of Anderson’s female protagonists, run off towards the end and the hero has to go after her. It happened in Phantom Waltz, Blue Skies, My Sunshine and probably one or two more I can’t think of. I believed it in My Sunshine. It’s my second favorite Anderson and in Phantom Waltz, I swallowed it because it made sense. I was tired of it in Blue Skies and by the time this one ran off, I was thinking, Jeez, just let her go. Find someone who doesn’t run when things get tough. Seriously.

More Anderson trademarks that have me weary are the old fashioned fathers like Clint’s father (I can’t remember his name off hand) and interfering families (Loni’s mother, sister and grandmother). It’s almost a repeat of half the books in the Coulter series and I’m hoping these aren’t around for the next ones. It just get olds after a while.

I was so disappointed in this but I hope that the next book from Catherine Anderson will restore my faith in her because she’s one of my favorite authors and I suppose everyone has a misstep. The book was still well written and there were pieces I liked like Clint’s relationship with his new found son so I didn’t hate it, hence the C+ grade. A book with a promising premise but a terribly flawed execution.

I realized tonight that Catherine Anderson’s newest novel, Morning Light, was released earlier this month. Usually, I’m more on top of releases from my favorite authors but I missed this one. I was looking at the reviews on Amazon and a lot of them were very critical of the book, even people who said that they were fans of the author.

I usually don’t allow reviews to influence me on my book purchases a lot. I usually find that when I enjoy the author, nine times out of ten, I will find each new book enjoyable. I can only think of a few exceptions where I can’t read all the books by an author (Johanna Lindsey is just someone who I only buy on the bargain rack and maybe not even then) but that’s changed a little in the last year as I started to cut back on my book purchases because I have way too many (I’m at just under 700 in my bedroom alone and it’s not that big of a room).

When Nora Roberts published High Noon over the summer, I didn’t rush out right away to buy it. Usually, I have her books on pre-order, but I read an somewhat unfavorable review in Entertainment Weekly and it made me pause for a moment. It was going to be a somewhat more expensive purchase than the usual $7 (in hardback at Barnes and Noble, it would run about $18 with my discount) so I decided that unless I had some extra money later that I would either take it from the library or wait for the paperback.

I was eventually given a gift card and it was at the top of my list to buy. I thought it was one of the strongest standalone novels she’s published in a few years and now I think the review was probably from someone who isn’t a romance novel addict like myself and the core of Nora’s fanbase so in my head, a review from Entertainment Weekly was a lot easier to discard so I could purchase the book anyway.

But the reviews for the new Catherine Anderson are less easier to ignore because they come from people who’ve devoured every previous novel, who like me, probably have her books on a easy to each bookshelf (not hidden or easily found spot like my Lindsey novels) so I can grab one for a reread at a convenience. I’m on a budget for my books these days and I’m not sure if I want to use the $10 for a book that was so poorly received by her own fans.

Then again, it’s only one source  of reviews. Maybe there’s another place where fans have fallen in love with it. I guess I just have to read the reviews thoroughly, see what they have in common and see if it’s something that might effect my enjoyment.

I think reviews are an important thing to consider when purchasing most things — sofware, computers, electronics and cars but when it comes to subjective forms of entertainment like movies, books, television and music, I think it’s really hard to say what may or may not be enjoyable for someone because someone else may love it. You can only list a software’s functions so many different ways, but how a book effects you? I don’t know. I do think I’m going to wait a little longer to buy it and look it into something else this month.

I hope I’m wrong and that the book is fabulous because she really is an author I enjoy and turn to in my moments of boredom.