Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones, Silouette Nocturne, book #2 in Nocturne series, published June 1, 2007 with 288 pages. Raintree: Haunted features Gideon Raintree, a member of the Royal Raintree family. The reader is told that each Raintree member has a specific gift. When the story opens we learn that Gideon’s gifts include controlling electrical energy and talking with the dead.
The story is set in Wilmington, North Carolina and opens with a brutal murder of a young woman. Raintree is immediately assigned the case since he’s the only homicide detective there. We learn that the victim was a roommate of Gideon’s cousin, Echo Raintree. She may have been the intended target. So off she goes to spend quality time with family or friends, without thinking twice about it. Smart girl. Meanwhile, Hope Malory shows up at the crime scene for introductions. She’s Gideon’s new partner. Gideon doesn’t take the news well since he’s been working alone for the past 5 months. So there you have most of your conflict.
As readers, you want the couple the author pairs up together to belong together. That wasn’t the case here. Their first meeting, there was nothing memorable about it. No chemistry, no spark, no sizzle. The two seem to only annoy each other. The author starts doling out bits of information on character that had me shaking my head. Starting with Hope, we learn that she’s moved to Wilmington because her mom had a nasty fall. Being the good daughter, she wanted to be nearby. I groaned inwardly at the rest: zero luck with men, mistrustful of men, always picks a stinker and her past contains a painful relationship. Sigh.
Then the author starts spinning some really weird logic straight out of the Twilight Zone. Shortly after Hope first meets Gideon, she suspects he’s a dirty cop who probably played some role in the crimes that he’s solved. WTF? Simply because he lives in a nice house. The reader is subjected to the character’s contradictory musings:
“She [Hope] knew in her gut that Raintree was a liar. Of course he lied on a regular basis:he had a penis. The question was, how deep did the lies go?”
That thought popped up after meeting Gideon for all of five minutes. Yet, Hope is attracted to him despite his being a dirty cop:
“Did she want to believe he was a straight arrow because he was charming and good-looking as well as infuriating? She didn’t want to be that shallow; she didn’t want to be like those women who judged men by their looks and well-planned words, without ever looking inside to find what was real.”
Right. Let’s not forget Gideon. Outside of the nicely trimmed mustache and goatee, he wasn’t a winner either. The author loves to remind us that he’s a good cop. Well respected. Good looking. Not looking for love, marriage or kids. However, he has “bad dreams” of a little girl named Emma who calls him Daddy. Poor Emma. Anyway, Gideon has no discretion when he uses his “gift” of speaking to the dead at crime scenes. He’s always within earshot of other people who hear him whisper or talk out loud to himself. They must think he’s crazy but as long as he solves cases, who cares.
What made me close the book for good was when Gideon decides to get rid of his partner by sexually harassing her. He brings her to orgasm with his gift: his control over electrical energy. He pretty much tells her that no one will believe her if she cries sexual harassment. He thinks that her only option is to leave. Of course this doesn’t generate the result that Gideon was going for because the whole experience has left Hope baffled and confused and curious to know where this leads…[laugh]
Brief word about the bad guy: comical. Motive behind the killing: cliched and ridiculous. Romance: wasn’t much of one for me. The rest of the book: disjointed, poor plotting, bad dialogue—didn’t finish. I think I was halfway finished before that scene popped up to make me say: I’ve got other books to read. DNF. You may have better luck. Note: I find the five star rating at Amazon.com deceptive as there is not one review of this book up—yet.
Technorati Tags: Paranormal Romance, Linda Winstead Jones, Homicide detectives, Nocturne Series
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
So I am currently reading the first and it is okay. I did buy all 3 though b/c I have OCD and must read them in order ect… I will let you know what I thought!
i read the first book thought it was pretty good all the stuff that you don’t like is what makes the people more human. might be a tad over the top but still human
Uh, Karie, this is just an opinion on a book. Nothing more.
LEARN RESPECT!!! You wouldnt like it if I went up to you with a thousand people as witnesses and said your fat, ugly, bad at this and that, need to get a life, and ect. that I cant put on this comment!!! You would be embarassed and I know you would because Im not an easy person to embarass but that would do it for me.
I liked the first book in this series and of the little bit that i read of Haunted sounds good. I think you all are just rude. I would love to see you write a book better than hers. You are supposed to be supporting her and making her a better author not making her feel low. How is she suppose to write a book to your liking if she doesnt know what you dont like. If you have a poblem tell her waht it is and maybe she can fix it. Not everything is perfect and not every book you like. Yeah I have gotten mad over something not going the way I would have liked it to go but everything happens for a reason and not everything has a happy ending. You guys just need to get over yourselves. If you dont like the books she writes then just leave her books be and find books that you like, but you dont have to hurt her and especially make it public. LEARN SOME MANNERS!
Hi Mary. You were fortunate, my friend. You got to finish the first book. I didn’t even get that far. As for Jones, if this is the kind of book she writes, no fear, I have a long memory and a delete button. It was deleted right off my PDA. See, that’s the downside for buying bad ebooks, you can’t trade them in *shrug*
I almost liked the first book of the series until it left me high and dry, wondering what was going to happen to the characters that I had fallen in love with. Then came book 2, a “Harlequinish” take on a paranormal which had one of the most annoying heroines I’d ever read before, but what pissed me off is that it had nothing to do with the previous characters and little of the fascinating plot that Linda had created. Aaargh. Instead Jones decided to write her own stand alone story with a paranormal hero who uses his powers to give a little thrill during sex or to stand outside in the middle of a storm, getting hit by lightning. It would have been nice if he used it to be a hero… Naturally the conflict could have been resolved in five minutes if these two idiotic characters had taken the time to talk to each other. I promised myself that I will NEVER EVER read a book by Jones. Give this one a pass.
Hi Shelly, I haven’t had much luck with this series. Alas, I hope you have better luck as I am curious to know what other readers think.
Hmmm, this makes me worried. I have both this book and the first one waiting for me in my TBR pile. I haven’t tried anything by LWJ before. I guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I end up liking them.
personally, I don’t really enjoy Ms. Winstead Jones’ writing… I’ve read 2 books of her other series and didn’t really enjoy it. I thought perhaps this would be different, but I guess not… and I guess I won’t be buying this one… although the cover is not half bad
Ho-kay. Therapy. That little bit was enough to have me rolling my eyes!
CindyS
You’re unsubscribed, J.
As for torturing myself — I hadn’t read Ms. Jones before so I was kind of anticipating her book to be a little better but I was wrong. She writes other paranormal romances, according to BYRON, so I won’t be trying those either, looks like.
Keishon, please *unsubscribe* me from this entry. I tried to do it myself through the link below but it won’t let me. I’d rather come back and read the replies/other comment instead of stuff landing in my in-box.
I quit this series after the first one, which wasn’t bad, but if it hadn’t been LH, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. I’m surprised you went onto read book 2, you weren’t feeling #1, if I recall. (should I be feeling guilty? *g*)