Review: Blame the Indian! + Steamy romance, competent prose, domestic abuse, family dysfunction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 2, 2014
You know how too many reviews start out, "I really wanted to like this novel, but...."? Well, I don't know the author, I almost never read romances, and I did *not* want to like this sort of novel after all these years.But I did.First, I want to point out is was NOT the man on the cover that caught my eye. It was the bike. I love old Indian motorcycles, and not because Anthony Hopkins (my favorite actor) so memorably rode one in that excellent movie "World's Fastest Indian." Every day my eye flicks past a hundred book covers, titles and synopses. The few that grab me must then pass the page one test. I have 4,000 books in my Kindle, many of them Free Today or on sale, most of them unread. A dozen authors a month ask me to read and review their novels. Most do not pass the chapter one test. How did this one? The Indian doesn't even appear until halfway into the book, which had me miffed, and then it got precious little attention once it did. So why did I keep reading?It wasn't that the prose was competent. Too many novels are just not interesting *because* of the competent prose (authors afraid to be quirky, fresh and brave enough to break grammar rules, like ending a sentence with a preposition). It wasn't that the sex scenes did it for me. After three sentences, I've had enough; three pages of graphic sex? Eww.The cousin. That's it. And the police officer.Well, all right, it was more than that. Historical information is a great way to hook me. The movie "Monuments Men" has brought Nazi art theft into the limelight, and I have a great fascination for that travesty. Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists; in college, he's the one I chose to write a paper on. Indians are iconic, great motorcycles.This novel delivers more than the familiar tropes of the romance genre. A woman hiding her husband's abuse--and only one person astute enough to figure it out--that one leaped out at me and kept me turning pages.The plot was paper-thin, the murder mystery as dull as any of the whodunnits I shun along with romances in general, the characters not entirely authentic -- as one reviewer said, "Everything was very predictable in its singleminded effort to be unpredictable. The end result was rebellion for the sake of rebellion, and that doesn't flesh out characters, and it doesn't drive interest in the plot." But I kept reading, in spite of the assorted flaws of the novel. That is one major accomplishment, for a novelist to hook me and keep me as Nancy Warren did. Still. Next time, get the title and the cover right -- "Wild Ride" + photo of a vintage Indian = more of the motorocycle please.I swear to God and all my neglected author friends hopelessly waiting for a review from me, I won't read the sequels, I won't, I won't, I won't, not even if the next cover has a Harley...hold on, I'm checking...