Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts 4.5/5*

Review: Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts 4.5/5*

What: Carnal Innocence
Who: Nora Roberts
Stars: 4.5/5*
More info:  goodreads.com
Buy it:  Barnes and noble, amazon

Blurb: Nora Roberts, bestselling author of The Reef and Genuine Lies, mixes scorching passion with icy suspense in her classic novel of murder and infatuation in a southern town now available in hardcover for the first time.

In the small town of Innocence, Mississippi, days are long, nights are fragrant, and secrets are hard to keep. But when a brutal killer starts claiming the lives of the town's most attractive women, lifelong neighbors are forced to wonder if the culprit is a stranger lurking in the bayou...or someone right next door.

World-famous concert violinist Caroline Waverly knows nothing of the murders when she arrives in Innocence. Burned out from a childhood lost to endless rehearsals and an all-too-public breakup with the conductor who was her lover, Caroline is looking for a little peace and some time to think. She hopes that a stay at her late grandmother's house the one with a covered porch just made for soft summer nights will provide the tranquility she needs. But Innocence has something else to offer Caroline: a man named Tucker Longstreet.

Blessed with the Longstreet good looks, lazy charm, and family fortune, Tucker is a tall, cool drink of water and he knows it. He likes to keep his romances short and shallow. But one look at Caroline, and Tucker realizes that she is unlike any other woman he's met. Tightly coiled and coolly reserved, Caroline is determined to fight him off. She might be able to do a better job if she hadn't felt an unexpected thrill at his ardent advances...and if she hadn't been so scared after finding a third murder victim in the murky waters behind her home.

For Caroline Waverly, a beautiful summer interlude could turn into much more or could stir a killer's crazed dreams. Because there's just one small problem with her new romance: Tucker is the leading suspect in the killings

The Why: Awhile ago I was flipping though channels on TV trying to find something to watch and I happened across a series on Nora Roberts movies on Lifetime that were just starting.  Seeing as there was nothing better to watch I started on the series that would introduce me to author that I believe will stick with me for a while.  After watching the first movie, Carolina Moon, I was interested to see the new movie that was being advertised in the commercials.  After returning home from work I sat down and watched Carnal Innocence.  I knew as I was watching it that I would end up wanting to read the books, and I was a little worried that I was watching the movie first and that usually throws me off…

My Thoughts: Again I’m going to give a disclaimer because the book wasn’t the last I read and isn’t completely fresh in my mind at the moment.   What I’m writing now is from memory so it may be missing a point that could have been addressed.  The way I see it now: the fact that these positive points stuck in my mind till now mean that it was a memorable book.

Perhaps one of the reasons I liked this book so much was the ease of reading it allowed me to fall into.   Trying to go though my long-winded textbooks has left me with a level of scatterbrained I’ve never reached before, so being able to read something simple to follow is a nice was to relax.   I keep wanting to describe the book in a category of mindless for the simple fact that reading doesn’t take much out of you, you’re not trying to constantly find foils, foreshadowing, symbols, and other literary devices as you might in other books.  Perhaps you might say that this says something about me that I’m rating mindless books pretty high in my list, but that’s not really the case.    It may be mindless but it’s still well written and very much a complete book

Roberts writing in Carnal Innocence is sweet to follow and draws me in like many books fail to do.  The descriptions of everything are so complete that I can easily feel as if I’m standing next to a character and looking at the same thing they are, in the swamp fishing or out taking a walk in the oppressive heat of the summer day.  The descriptions of characters, which I often find incomplete for a reason I can’t pin down, are full and allow for characterization in my mind that is as complete as a photograph.

The characters themselves seem whole; they have solid emotions and driving factors that lead them into understandable situations.  Unlike other romance novels I love the main character Caroline because, as you learn her history, you learn she’s finally standing up for herself.   Many leading women in romance novels are plain wimpy and rely too heavily on the men chasing them.  Caroline actually stands her ground, which is part of why I like her.

All of the events that happen are interconnected, so everything fits and going over the events after the fact they seem to fit even better.  From finding the first body to finding out whom the killer is there are many little details that make the story even better and fit together perfectly, better than puzzle pieces that might usually describe a murder mystery in a story.

The one thing that I found distracting from the story was the relations of many of the characters. While I can understand that the family relations are important and show how close the characters all are, I felt like I needed a family tree to keep track of all of the characters and keep them straight.   The sheer number of characters doesn’t help either, there were just so many of them that were related to one character or another in some different way that I kept pausing while reading to try and figure some of the characters out.

I have a thing against rating whole numbers that I just noticed….
Samantha
*Hugs*