Review: Descriptions of Paris and the polished writing are the best parts of the book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2012
I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. There were some great things about this book but ultimately the issues I had with it seemed to overshadow the whole of the story for me.Let's talk about the good parts:Paris! Ok i have never been there but I feel like I was right there with Maya and Simon. It is obvious the author has been to Paris. This amount of detail with the streets, the food, the hotels the small bits of trivia is all presented with an ease and a flow that even the arm-chair traveler feels is authentic.The writing. Very nicely polished. I love it when I read a new to me author who doesn't feel newly hatched. LOL. And the conversational dialogue with real punctuation of normal everyday humor, even in fraught situations, felt real as well.So let's talk about the 'meh' parts:Romance. Maya and Sam hook-up while they are on the run during their Da Vinci Code-esque escapades. The problem is it felt tacked on and unconvincing. Honestly as I was reading I could almost hear the gears grind to a halt as the romance subplot was inserted in, only for them to start up sluggishly to get back to the thriller/adventure parts. Honestly Simon and Maya did not have any chemistry. And the sex scenes didn't feel organic to the already labored romance. In fact they felt weirdly dispassionate.The Da Vinci Code redux. This is a personal thing, but I am not a major fan of the secret society/on-the-run/priceless artifact thriller. Although I absolutely adoredThe Eight, that book pretty much ate up my quota for that plot device. There were moments where I thought incidents stretched credibility. Sure your phone dies just as you are about to give your friend an absolutely necessary and timely warning.The Villain. Managed to be everywhere all the time.So yeah, overall this book was not inside my wheelhouse although it may appeal to thriller fans, as long as they don't mind an awkward romantic subplot.