Laura C’s review of She Can Run by Melinda Leigh
Romantic Suspense published by Montlake Romance 28 Nov 11

Because this is my first Montlake Romance book, and because I think people might be wondering about the quality of these books, I want to give my impressions of the physical object itself before I start to talk about the story.

First, the cover. Go enlarge it so you can see what it will look like on a trade paperback sized book. It’s ugly. Really ugly. Like a first-year photographer and first-year Photoshop student could do a better job. I don’t want to see every pore of the poor heroine’s skin highlighted by bad lighting and emphasized by the ugly color scheme.

So it was with some dread that I opened the book. But the interior is a pleasant surprise.  Nice, heavy paper with a creamy color and a well-designed interior with readable font and good spacing. If you’re a trade paperback buyer, this is a good quality book, once you get past the cover.

Unfortunately, the story is a disaster. I couldn’t finish it. Melinda Leigh is a fine technical writer–her characters speak naturally and she has a good sense for how much description is enough without going overboard, but her plot is trite, clichéd, and full of holes.  I only got to page 110, and these are the clichés I counted:

Our heroine, Beth, is on the run from her
1 ) abusive husband, who is (naturally) a
2 ) powerful politician because she
3 ) saw something she shouldn’t have seen. She runs to her sort-of uncle who has ESP (not a cliché, but gimme a break already), which of course makes him a
4 ) Deus Ex Machina. He sends her off to a
5 ) horse farm in the middle of nowhere which happens to be owned by
6 ) an injured ex-cop who
7 ) “sees too much” and has as his companion a
8 ) dog who flunked police training and a
9 ) housekeeper who loves kids. Oh, did I mention Beth has two kids from her previous marriage? Well, she does, so this would be great except that Oops! there happens to be a
10 ) serial killer on the loose in their neighborhood who
11 ) fixates on Beth.

The characters in this book are incredibly flat. There are no shades of gray. You have good on one side, evil on the other. Good guys are guys who want to help Beth. Bad guys are ones who leer at her breasts or make (unwanted) passes at her like the neighbor or the feed store delivery guy or, of course, her husband that she’s on the run from.

And speaking of being on the run from the second husband, Beth’s psychology is all wrong for an abuse victim.  Most women who stay with abusers don’t bring to the relationship two kids from a solid, stable, faithful and loving marriage. They’re damaged goods going in, which is what abusers sense, what gives them an opening.  And Beth has approximately three hours–with no planning–to disappear completely, which she manages to do at the beginning of the book because her husband, unlike most abusers, doesn’t actually have all that much control over her.

Luckily, her aunt’s lover, who she is still in contact with and runs to in her hour of need, is the kind of guy with dozens of fake IDs (ESP, you know) so he cannot only help her disappear, he can disappear himself when the husband finds out where she went. Of course, that’s after he’s gotten her a job on the horse farm in the middle of nowhere.

And Jack, the ex-cop? His psychology is all wrong, too.  Beth complains over and over about how he sees everything. Well, maybe he sees, but he sure doesn’t interpret. Most every cop I know (and yes, I’ve known plenty over time) has the same reaction when a woman flinches around men: “domestic abuse victim.”  It’s like it’s hardwired into their brains.  And yet Jack, our hero, can’t figure out what Beth could be on the run from?

I gave up on this book when the husband, who has shown no signs of being a psychopath up to page 110, just a bad guy and a bully, decides that he’s going to deal with Beth by imitating the serial killer because it would be fun to torture, rape, and strangle her.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Elizabeth was a young widow with two small children when she met Congressman Richard Baker. Handsome and wealthy, with a sparkling public image, Richard seemed like the perfect man to provide the security that Beth and her kids were craving. But when she uncovers a dangerous secret about her new husband, Beth realizes he will go to any lengths—even murder—to keep it. After barely escaping with her life, she and her children flee. They eventually make their way to a secluded estate in the Pennsylvania countryside, where Beth dares to hope she has found a safe place at last…

Forced into retirement by an unexpected injury, Philadelphia homicide detective Jack O’Malley is mourning the loss of his career when his uncle abruptly dies, leaving Jack to dispose of his crumbling country house. Unbeknownst to him, his uncle engaged a caretaker just before his death, a mysterious woman with two children and a beautiful face that haunts his dreams. Determined to know her, Jack begins an investigation into Beth’s past. When he uncovers the shocking truth, and a local woman is viciously murdered, Jack puts his own life on the line to keep Beth and her children safe.

Read an excerpt.