The Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable

2007-07-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

This is the repository for the Roundtable's previous reviews.

The Sunday Trumpet---5/28

2006-05-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Tera at Sweet Perdition likes scary movies, and has seen a lot of them that I've never even heard of.

So when I started to read her review of An American Haunting, I thought...wow, a creep-fest with Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek!

Aside from the movie Carrie, I don't think I remember Sissy being in other horror flicks after her Oscar win with Coal Miner's Daughter.

I'm a little surprised that she'd sign on to do horror again. And crappy horror at that.

As for Donald Sutherland, he's creeped the sh*t out of me since he played an old man diving face first under 14-year-old Diane Lane's skirt in The Oldest Living Confederate Widow. He could do a Jello commercial and he'd still skeeve me out.

Although I've always found the story of The Bell Witch interesting, I'm definitely going to cross this one off my viewing list.

Thanks, Tera!

Go over there and give her a shout!

Be A Gasbag!

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

For links to our previous reviews, visit us at The Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable.

An American Haunting

2006-05-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

As a drive-in mutant who doesn’t drive, a lot of bad movies are my fault. I’ve asked a cousin to see Hostel with me, and she spent thirty minutes behind the palms of her hands; told a friend that we “have to” rent (a heavily edited) Last House on the Left, because my dad made me promise never to see it. I’ve even begged my mother—my own mother!—to drive clear across town to the ultra-expensive multiplex for Cabin Fever. But when it comes to the worst mainstream movie we’ve seen all year, I can’t take all the blame.

“Tera!” my mom said in the car one day. “Donald Sutherland’s in a new scary movie!”

And I said, “Nunh-unh!”

“Really. It’s called An American Haunting. And it looks really good.”

Donald Sutherland in a new scary movie. After chasing down little girls in red coats and solving The Rosary Murders—not to mention fathering the creepiest guy in Hollywood—the senior Sutherland could surely scare the crap out of me again. Especially with Sissy Spacek involved. (Remember when she went on that killing spree with Martin Sheen in Badlands? And anyone who tells you that Carrie isn’t scary is a fool).

On opening weekend, I inform Mom that there’s a 1:30 show, and that we’ll be there. I pay six dollars. And two hours later, I am extremely pissed off.

An American Haunting, as its trailer tells us, is based on “the only recorded case in history where a spirit caused the death of a human being.” It’s also not very scary, but compensates by being incredibly loud.

In the 1800s, landowner John Bell and his wife—Sutherland and Spacek, respectively— have a beautiful daughter named Betsy. The Bells live out in the wilderness, so there are lots of wolves (ROAAR!!!!) and John shoots them (BANG!! BANG!!), But he still has time to cheat the neighborhood witch out of a ton of money, and the church, which he’s helped build, decides in his favor.

The witch is not pleased.

Soon, weird things start happening to John and Betsy. He gets sicker and sicker; she gets pulled upstairs by her hair (THUMP!! THUMP!! THUMP!!), thrown into walls (THWACK!! THWACK!!), and dragged around her room until she scratches up the wooden floor with her fingernails (SCREE!! SCREE!!). By the time she starts flopping on her bed and the doctor thinks she’s having seizures, I have to wonder: Why have we remade The Exorcist twice in the past nine months?

But fifth-generation plot points aren’t enough to make a movie bad. An American Haunting is mostly what Bart and Lisa Simpson would call “meh”—it treads water for 90 minutes, doing nothing well but avoiding Trumpet-worthy awfulness.

And then it ends.

The end of An American Haunting is impossible to spoil, because it has nothing to do with the movie. The filmmakers didn’t even shoot it; they just splashed some words on the screen and expected us to read them. Apparently, Betsy created the ghost herself to protect herself from her father. Why on earth would Betsy need, even subconsciously, to be protected from this guy? I have no idea, but here’s my completely evidenceless theory: He was molesting her. Obviously, an upstanding citizen—who works for the church! double points!—sexually assaults children.

So, what’s your theory? Why would a 10-to-12-year-old girl hate her dad enough to create a psychic disturbance? Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the movie: you know just as much about John Bell’s dark side as the rest of us. Go wild. (Bonus points for involving the Terminator). Fly, my beauties! Fly!

The Sunday Trumpet---5/21

2006-05-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today's Sunday Strumpet*---er---Trumpet is Madonna!

Our friend Sophia explains her love/hate relationship with the pop icon as she reviews her newest release.

Come visit her blog and check it out!

Be A Gasbag!

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

For links to our previous reviews, visit us at The Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable.

*Thanks, Pooper!

The Sunday Trumpet---5/14

2006-05-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

Our friend Miss Keeks scoffs at simpering and tears apart City of Light, a historical novel set in her hometown, by Lauren Belfer.

Grover Cleveland a rapist? How could he find his feet, much less his, well you know...

Wait a minute. I got him mixed up with the president in the bathtub.

Never mind.

Anyhoo, run over and give Keeks a shout!

Be A Gasbag!

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

For links to our previous reviews, visit us at The Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable.

A Pukelitzer Prize for FICTION

2006-05-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

For the past three years I have walked into my favorite bookstores, seen 200 copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vince Code sitting on the “#1 Bestseller” shelf, and asked me, “When is the highly-intelligent reading public going to give some other piece of shit a chance at being #1?” I mean, it just isn’t fair: In three years time, Nora Roberts and James Patterson have each written 30 or 40 pieces of shit apiece that surely deserve to be #1. But noooo, the misspelled Da Vinci (the name is da Vinci, small d) just sits there, week after week after week, hogging the coveted top spot. Hog, hog, hog.

(If I failed to offend anyone in that first paragraph, just wait.)

First, to the legitimate reviews. Publishers Weekly called it a “page-turner.” BFD. I contend that every book ever written is a page-turner: unless one turns the page, one cannot read pages 2, 4, 6, and so on, can one. AudioFile, which reviews audiobooks, said it was “an exciting read.” If you are expecting me to make a snide remark about reading an audiobook, your expectation is in error. Rather, I have a memo to all of the hotshot book reviewers out there. MEMO to all of you hotshot reviewers out there: "Read" is a fucking VERB, an ACTION word meaning, “To read”. One can read (VERB) an exciting (ADJECTIVE) book (NOUN), but in no manner, shape, or form can a book (NOUN) be an exciting (ADJECTIVE) read (NOUN). I suggest, then, that you professional reviewers return to third grade for a verb-noun refresher course and clean out the asspimples in your brain while you're at it.

The Da Vince Code. I’m getting to it. Just give me a minute.

I am a multi-genre reader of books, but my preferred bedtime genre has always been mystery/thriller. And boy, have I read some dandies over the years. Ken Follett’s early thrillers like Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Robert Ludlum’s thrillers, written while he was actually alive, like The Bourne Identity and The Rhinemann Exchange. These books thrilled me, as in “To cause to feel a sudden intense sensation; to excite greatly”. Yes, folks, these books gave me mental orgasms.

But for me, The Da Vince Code did nothing but shoot blanks. I didn’t even have time to shoot a blank because I fell asleep first. What was a clever premise was, in fact, a snooze-a-thon. When I finally finished it over a period of several weeks, which is always a bad sign for a thriller, I gave it to Martha to prop up the bum leg on her storage shelves in the garage. She informs me that it works wonderfully as a propper-upper, so I guess my entire $20 investment wasn’t a total waste.

For those who must have a synopsis, here it is in shorthand. Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, hero, personality of a mud pie. Sophie Neveu, a noted cryptologist for the French Surete, co-hero, extremely beautiful, personality of a French mud pie. The Holy Grail. Yes, that Holy Grail. The Knights Templar. Opus Dei, a whacko Catholic cult. A fellow from Opus Dei putters with flagellation. He wears a contraption around his thigh with sharp spikes that continually poke him in the balls. Poke, poke, poke. Leo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. SPOILER: Jesus and Mary Magdalene and the horizontal polka. Mary, a fruitful lass, births a child after the crucifixion. 2000 years later, there’s a whole shitload of Jesus and Mary offspring running around loose. End of synopsis.

I’ll admit that I was taken in, just once, by this stupid story. Brown contends that one of the apostles in da Vinci’s Last Supper is not an apostle at all, but is in fact Mary Magdalene herself. Mildly curious, then, I took my old paint-by-numbers Last Supper off the wall and scrupulously searched it for an apostle in drag. Nope, didn’t find her, even though my painting-by-numbers was extraordinarily detailed and good.

So why, then, has this book remained a bestseller for over three years? Because, folks, millions of asspimples think this shit is TRUE! That’s right: as Tweety Bird would say, “It’s TWUE, it’s TWUE!” Only it isn’t. This is a fucking NOVEL, you idiots. If it were twue it would be in NON-fiction, or even in the religion section on the “Cockamamie Pseudo-Religious Theories” shelf. If it were twue, it would be #1 on the NON-fiction bestseller list—in which case James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces would have to switch over to #1 on the FICTION bestseller list, where it has rightly belonged all along.

To prove my point, do a Google search of The Da Vinci Code. Go ahead. Be astounded by 68,400,000 hits.

While I’m here, I might as well get The Movie out of the way, too. It starts on May 19, and it stars a formerly-great-actor-who-sold-out-for-the-money, Tom Hanks. Audrey Tatou, who was a wonderful Amelie in 2001, stars as the beautiful cryptologist. Even worse, little Opie Taylor, now known as Ron Howard, directed it. I could cry. Expect mud pie personalities, lots of meaningful “looks”, and industrial-size magnifying glasses. There will be a humdinger of a chase scene around the museum district of Paris. The music will be loud to cover the bad acting and stir emotions, like the shrieking violins in Psycho. The cockamamie theories will fly with abandon, giving no one the slightest chance to say, “Now wait just a durn minute!”

Unfortunately, I am only one humble, pissant reviewer. The pros will hate it, but millions of the faithful flock will flock to the theater anyway. All I can do is leave you with a word of caution:

If you go to the movie, and if there is an odd-looking stranger sitting next to you, and if he keeps shifting uncomfortably in his seat, then he is probably wearing a contraption that continually pokes him in the balls.

Poke, poke, poke.

The Sunday Trumpet---It's All in a Name

2006-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

Full Speed
By Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes
St. Martin's Paperbacks
2003

I'm starting my review with a general complaint of a trend.

It used to be that very prolific authors would use pseudonyms in order not to flood the market with their work---or to cross genres. Stephen King, Catherine Cookson and Gwendoline Butler come to mind as examples.

Now in the days of "Name-Brand Marketing", less-prolific but still phenomenally successful authors are doing just the opposite. They're slapping their name on every piece of shit that comes down the pooper and calling themselves a "co-writer", just to line their pockets.

It's no longer about giving readers quality writing. It's about trading in on Name-Brand recognition. Like John Elway Subaru.

The author V.C. Andrews died in 1986, after writing 8 books. She didn't write her 30+ subsequent bestsellers via Miss Cleo the phone psychic for the last 20 years--her estate hired horror novelist Andrew Neiderman (whose identity was kept secret for a number of years) to write under her name, which was a tremendous sales asset.

You could put her name on a book about harnessing gophers, and it would still sell a gazillion copies. Just throw a little incest in there and the sheeples don't even know it's about gophers.

James Patterson, the author of the Alex Cross series is doing it.

Unfortunately now one of my favorite authors, Janet Evanovitch is doing it as well.

Janet--What were you thinking?

I've been a fan for years. I eagerly await each new installment of your Plum series. You're already a best-selling author. Is squeezing your loyal readers for additional dough more important than integrity?

How could you pass this dookie off as your own work?

Here is a letter from Janet to her readers introducing her new writing "partnership", and my response to it:

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the world of Jamie Swift and Max Holt! My good friend Charlotte Hughes and I have teamed up to create a series of books...

Dear Janet,

Dump Charlotte. Her writing is terrible. As Dorothy Parker once said, "This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

... featuring these two characters and they've taken on a life of their own!

As opposed to what? A petri dish full of dead cow pox?

These books are not set in the same world as my Stephanie Plum novels,

They aren't even in the same UNIVERSE as your Stephanie Plum novels--much to the woe of the dupe who plunks down 8 bucks for this miserable sack of hair.

but what they have in common is lovable, dysfunctional characters, villains you love to hate, and a cross-eyed way of looking at life.

I was already beginning to get cross-eyed by the end of the first chapter. And felt more than a little dysfunctional.

Jamie and Max have intense chemistry-even though they drive each other crazy.

Yeah, all those trite, tired cliches do tend to make brain cells hurt. I'm feeling a little postal myself.

Max thinks Jamie is a magnet for trouble and Jamie thinks Max is the most annoyingly sexy, mysterious man she's ever met.

Sexy? Ha. Annoying? An understatement!

She knows she should stay away from him.

And she should have. Then we could have all gone home and put an end to this craptastic series.

But boy, oh boy, do the sparks fly when they get together. Jamie is a newspaper owner from a small southern town. And in Full Speed, she's after the story of a lifetime.

Well it certainly isn't this one!

Max Holt is right in the middle of that story, and so Jamie tracks down the millionaire playboy, forcing him to take her on as partner. What follows is a story of a corrupt minister, a gang of mobsters on the loose, a hound dog called Fleas, a wise-cracking computer genius, and lots of love in the fast lane.

He has a freaking car that talks! Does David Hasselhoff know you've been stealing his plot lines?

Not to mention plenty of steamy action between Jamie and Max.

Frankly, I got more excited remembering a really creepy sex dream I had about Louie Anderson in Spongebob shorts. Don't ask. I ate cheese before bedtime. I swear. But it was hot.

So have fun with Full Speed. We're going to sign off now and get back to creating more romantic adventures between Jamie Swift and Max Holt.

Please. I beg of you. Don't.

Enjoy and happy reading!

I'd rather eat paint.

Janet and Charlotte

Janet, how could you?
__________________________
__________________________

Be A Gasbag!

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

For links to our previous reviews, visit us at The Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable.

The Sunday Trumpet 4/23

2006-04-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

Our friend Nightmare made it through a viewing of the chick-flick Uptown Girls with his eyeballs still intact. I think it turned his brain though--because he has a few ideas on how to improve the movie.

I, on the other hand, think the only thing that could improve it is a can of gasoline and fistful of matches.

Starring Brittany Murphy (don't get the casting there!) and Dakota Fanning (so annoying I was hoping the aliens would hurry up and eat her just to shut her up in War of the Worlds!), you can read Nightmare's man-friendly review here on his blog.

Be A Gasbag!

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

Here are links to our previous Gasbag Reviews:

Admiral Pooper's review of The MacGregor Brides

Rhonda's review of Artificial Intelligence

One Ear's review of What To Expect When You're Expecting

St. Jude's review of Tall Poppies

Miss Meg's review of The Truth About Diamonds

Sven's review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Sunday Trumpet 4/16

2006-04-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week, our friend Sven not only kills a sacred cow, but he serves it up spitted, roasted and covered in BBQ sauce!

Come over here and read his hilariously incisive review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling.

Be A Gasbag!

The Sunday Trumpet 4/9

2006-04-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

This week, our lovely Meg, The Compulsive Liar, gives us a review of the crapfest also known as The Truth About Diamonds, by the spectacularly untalented Nicole Richie.

Be A Gasbag!

The Sunday Trumpet 4/2

2006-04-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning and happy Sunday!

This week, our saintly St. Jude has stopped unpacking to review the wildly silly and improbable Tall Poppies by Louise Bagshaw.

Check out what she writes about the author bio. Too snarky!

I'm definitely going to leave this one off my summer reading list.

Thanks, St. Jude!

Since we got a little discombobulated on our dates and reviews last week, check out One Ear's review of WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING, by Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg and Sandee Hathaway.

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the history and rules and sign up here!

The Sunday Trumpet 3/28

2006-03-28T06:38:00.000-08:00

One Ear woke up yesterday and thought it was next Sunday (don't worry, I'm confused too), and submitted his weekly Sporadic Gasbag Review.

Having lived through the [koff koff] joy of giving birth, I have to admit he has valid points.

Pregnancy books don't provide much entertainment for husbands.

Read his hilarious commentary (he's already got some indignant responses!) on the book WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING, by Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg and Sandee Hathaway.

Artificial Intelligence

2006-03-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

Grab a bottle of bean-o and pull up a keyboard, it’s time for the first installment of . . .
Reviews are subjective things. I have a history of loathing movies that later become Oscar nominees, so I write this fully anticipating being the voice of dissent among my fellow gasbags.

The message (that artificial intelligence is – or perhaps one day will be – the spawn of natural stupidity) wasn’t lost on me. I can even appreciate the creators’ ability to make robots seem more human than humans. I just have a natural aversion to movies based upon disposable, replaceable children. I know what you’re thinking: C’mon, Rhonda, this isn’t a child – it’s a robot, lighten up, you issue-laden bastard.

But he isn’t a robot – he’s a roboy, a futuristic Pinocchio capable of human love and heartbreak. Procured by a grieving mother desperate to replace her comatose son, David joins the family. Plot logic blunder number one: if they could create almost real children from a pile of medical waste and a few computer chips could they not fix her kid? Cram a microchip into his brainmush or something? And frankly, they should’ve pulled the plug on the real kid. When he returns home following a miracle, we learn he’s a sociopathic little shit.

So what is a mother to do when her real kid doesn’t like his expensive store bought brother? Why, drop him off in the middle of a dark forest to be bot-napped and sold into the future’s equivalent of the tractor pull, a grizzly freak show where unwanted robots – even little boybots with human emotions – are sprayed with acid, impaled by machines and shot from cannons.

That BITCH!

Fortunately, boybot is rescued by Gigalo Joe, who leads him on a journey to find The Blue Fairy – a magical creature rumored to possess the ability to turn boybots into real boys. Gigalo is, as the name implies, a boytoybot for hire. Okay, this is a concept I can wrap my mind around – a handsome manbot programmed to please who will never leave the toilet seat up, fill the bathroom sink with shaving stubble, snore or launch deadly gasbombs under the covers. Ahem, I digress.

So robokid spends the next 237 years waiting to become a real boy in effort to win back his mother’s love. As the storyline drags on, you begin to wonder if AI doesn’t stand for Artificial Idiocy and start rethinking your initial repulsion with tossing boybot into an acid bath. When the movie finally ends (it’s almost three hours long), you’ll feel like you really sat through 237 years of tail-chasing frustration.

So, next weekend, if you think to yourself: I’m really in the mood for a movie that views like Brothers Grimm meet Robocop at Moulin Rouge where they steal ideas from Pinocchio, Wizard of Oz and Peterpan and write a sadistic screenplay with an ending so syrupy I’ll vomit, then Artificial Intelligence is your tub of popcorn.

Otherwise, skip the trip to the movie store and do something less painful and annoying – like running your fingernails across a chalkboard or standing beneath the hum of bad fluorescent lighting until your eardrums implode.

**************************
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Wander over to Atilla's place and sign up!

The Sunday Trumpet 3/19

2006-03-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

It's time for the Sunday Trumpet!

The ever-fabulous Rhonda stepped up to the plate and agreed to write our very first Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review!

If ever there was an expensive, high-tech, and craptastic waste of three hours, I think we could definitely put Artificial Intelligence in the top 10.

You can catch Rhonda's review on her blog: Rhonda's Ruminations .

If you're interested in joining our Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review team, you can find the rules and sign up here!

Welcome to The Sunday Trumpet

2006-03-11T03:42:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was poking around in Charlie Callahan's attic (where I must say, he stores a lot of really oddball stuff) and came across a book review he had written a month or so back.

Of course, being me, my first thought was "Why in the world is Charlie Callahan reading romance novels?"

The second thought was, "Oh my God, I think I wet myself!"

It was brilliant!

It was the kind of review I'd love to read every day. Not one of those sycophantic slobbering types--the ones where after you read the book/see the movie/watch the TV show--you're left scratching your head--wondering "What the hell was so great about that?"

It was catty. It was rude. It was enormously hysterical.

I started thinking about all the really wonderful and humorous writers I've been fortunate to meet in the last couple of months (and even those I haven't met yet) in blogland. Why not invite them to vent and write stinker reviews of their own?

After talking it over with Charlie and a couple of other people, we figured that a team blog wouldn't work, simply because it wouldn't be inclusive if only some people had passwords.

So we put our silly little noggins together and came up with (thank you Rhonda for the fabulous graphic!):

Anyone can join, as long as they follow the rules (or else it would be anarchy, I tell you! Anarchy!)

The Rules:

1. Sign up in the comments section on this entry.

2. Everyone who signs up will be given a date (a Sunday) to supply a review. First come first served.

3. It has to be a review of a movie, a book or a television show you hated.

4. It has to be popular media---nothing really obscure, preferably within the last 5 years, exceptional exceptions accepted. ;-)

5. On Sundays, when the new review comes out, everyone on the list MUST write an entry on their own blogs with the logo (you can copy it from here) and a link to the reviewer's blog. You can write comments about what you thought of it, etc, on your entry if you choose.

Don't be shy! We'd love to have you join us!

So without further delay, I introduce our first official Sporadic Gasbag Roundtable review, courtesy of Mr. Charlie "I'm-not-too-macho-to-read-romance-novels" Callahan.

Roll Me Over, Royce, In My Rolls Royce, review of The MacGregor Brides by Nora Roberts.

Roll Me Over, Royce, in My Rolls Royce

2006-03-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

As you all know by now, I approach every subject I write about with objectivity, integrity, and a sense of fair play—three characteristics that are, er, characteristic of me. Characteristically, then, and with no thought aforethought of being judgmental, I dove open-mindedly yesterday into the pages of Nora Roberts’ The MacGregor Brides.

Jesus, what a piece of shit.

Okay, I confess that I didn’t read all 370 pages, but I did read 50 of ’em. Hell, if I’d finished the whole book I’d be back in the hospital, this time getting my brain pumped.

A brief summary of the first 50 pages: Laura MacGregor, fabulously rich and fabulously beautiful, is fabulously adept at protecting the sanctity of her fabulous knickers. Royce Cameron, a fabulous pussy hound who thinks with his fabulously small schlong, is nearly into Laura's fabulous knickers by the end of Chapter 3. Laura is a fabulous attorney and Royce a fabulous security systems designer, but in the course of human affairs they are both as vapid, as vacuous, and as dumb as a box filled with fabulously dead spiders.

Publishers Weekly said about the book, “[Roberts] delivers the goods with panache and wit.” And the always-well-regarded-and-reliable Los Angeles Daily News said, “Roberts is indeed a word artist, painting her story and her characters with vitality and verve.”

Liars, liars, pants on fire.

Here is a sample of Roberts’ “panache and wit” (page 33):

Royce: “If you change your mind about the meal, you’ve got my number.”
Laura: “Oh yeah, I’ve certainly got your number.”

Here’s a sample of her “word artistry” (page23):

“Her hair was black as midnight, straight as rain, and tumbled to a waist that just begged to be spanned by a man’s two hands.
“And she was wearing some of the sexiest underwear it had ever been his pleasure to observe. If the face lived up to the body, it was really going to brighten his morning.”

And here’s some “vitality and verve” (page 47):

“He lowered his mouth toward hers, stopping an inch before contact. He saw her eyes darken, heard the long intake of breath, knew she held it. He waited, while his blood surged, waited until they were both suffering.”

Make that three, pal; I was suffering right along with the two of you.

But as shitty as this book is, both writing- and story-wise, here are a couple of reader comments from Amazon.com:

“This is a sheer delight from start to finish, Nora Roberts at her very best.”

“I loved every part of this book!! I couldn't put it down. Anyone who loves romance will love this book. It won't [let] you down!”

So what the hell is wrong with these people?

Or is it me?