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Friday, August 04, 2006
The Vision (dun dun dun...)
Title: The Vision
Author: Heather Graham
I've been thinking for a bit about how to make this unique, since pretty much every book I'll be talking about on here is a trashy romance novel. It's tough. Let's go through a sample checklist:
Man thinks woman's nuts. Check.
Woman thinks man's an arrogant jerk. Check.
Woman and Man make asinine bet where one of the payoffs is them sleeping together. Check.
Said bet is made by chapter 3, when they still don't like each other. Check.
Okay, okay, there's some ghosts and stuff in here too. That makes it a bit harder for me, since it's more challenging to go along with the fantasy and put myself in for the heroine when she's seeing ghosts all the time.
There is one new and exciting element. The hero's name is Thor. As in Norse god of thunder and stuff. It's impossible to take this very seriously with a character named Thor. Then again, a book I loved a few years ago had a character named Jedidiah Skimmerhorn as the love interest. Come on - seriously?
But back to The Vision. There's a few subplots going on here, in addition to the inevitable happy ending.
They're hunting for a sunken treasure ship, or treasure, or something. Pirates were involved in the sinking, though they didn't really flesh that out too much. All the characters are therefore professional divers.
There's a ghost. OOoooo.
And some dead hookers.
Most of the focus and time is directed to the ghost(s), but the only real action and climax deals with the dead hookers. Each storyline felt like it needed a lot more details, and yet adding them would make the book way too long.
In the end, the ghost(s) is(are) happy, the hooker-killer is captured, and true love prevails!
Honestly, I've never put so much thought into a book with so little value. It's a lot easier to enjoy these when you read it quickly and promptly forget all about it, thereby not wasting precious brain space better dedicated to useful stuff, like song lyrics.
Of course, you can't go into a book like this and expect a classic. As a few hours of escapism, it works, well. Plus, it just makes me want to dig out the scuba gear and go on vacation, which we all need to do...Labels: romantic "suspense", trashy romance
posted by ket at
2:17 PM
2 Comments:
My two favorite bits: "Norse god of thunder and stuff," and the ironically obvious "the only real action and climax deals with ... hookers." Well, *yeah*. I mean, isn't that their *job*?
8/04/2006 3:03 PM
You really do read some great stuff. Haha. :) I can understand the urge though because sometimes you really just need to escape and not think. That's why I watch chick flicks endlessly. :)
8/06/2006 7:22 PM
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