Saturday, April 02, 2011

Books read in 2011: No. 14 - Crime Scene at Caldwell Ranch

Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranchby B.J. Daniels

Started: April 2
Finished: April 5

Notes: As those who know me can attest, I'm not a romance reader. In fact, unless you count Gone With the Wind, I've only read one romance novel my entire life. But there are a couple of reasons why I'm reading this novel. For one, it was free. I was attending the North Carolina State Fair in 2010 where there were several tents under which were a half dozen or so young people handing out bags and bags of free books. Being a sucker for free books, I took a couple of bags. Upon returning home, I opened the bags to find they were stuffed with a dozen or so copies of one book, this one, Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch. So I got if for free, and have given away all the other copies I had. The other reason I'm reading this novel is for education. Romance novels are huge sellers, and since I'm a writer, I feel it behooves me to study the market some. And that's what I'm doing.

Mini review: This was actually a fun little read. Nothing overly thought-provoking here, but this was definitely a page turner. The writer did a great job of keeping the readers interest, doling out just enough information to keep you flipping pages. For those who normally don't like the romance genre, I have to say, there really wasn't a lot of gushy scenes here. There is one very brief love scene that takes up about a page, and it's not overly intrusive. The mystery writing here was solid, but don't expect great literature in a classical sense. Not a bad read.

1 comment:

Stewart Sternberg (half of L.P. Styles) said...

A couple summers ago I visited the local library and began reading several romances. My goal was to study the genre. Maybe, I thought, I would see what I needed to do to reach out to this section of the consuming audience.

What I discovered was that romance wasn't a bad genre, and like all genres, there were poor and excellent writers. I also learned that much of the intolerance for romance by other genres is mostly aimed at the people reading it. Or at least those who devour only romance.