Potpourri

A Place For Us To Offer Our Thoughts on Books that are an Attractive Blend of Romance and other Genres!
The romance is there, but so is the mystery, the fantasy, or the suspense. It's a book we want to review, but it doesn't quite fall within the "Romance Novel" category. What do we do? We create a column especially for these cross genre books that don't fit anywhere else... Enjoy!


This month, our reviewer Barbara happily lost herself in COLD BLOODED by Lisa Jackson (Zebra Books, June 2002). Here's what she had to say about it.

Olivia Bechet had returned home to Louisiana to care for her dying grandmother. She has inherited more than the old bayou homestead from her grandmother who raised her - she has the gift of "Sight". Olivia sees things before they happen, in her dreams, and has known she had this gift since she was a small child.

Returning to New Orleans this time, however, she begins to see evil things happening. There is a serial killer terrorizing the streets of the city; he calls himself The Chosen One and he does horrible things to his victims before killing them. Olivia sees all of this in her dreams at or near the time it happens.

Olivia attempts to report what she knows to the police. She has read about a Detective Rick Bentz who was involved in solving a similar crime spree in New Orleans the year before and she hopes he might believe what she has to say as her previous reports have fallen on deaf ears. The police think she is some kind of nutcase.

Rick listens as Olivia gives him the details of the murder she has witnessed in her dreams. Like the other detectives he thinks she is a few bricks shy of a full load - that is until the exact crime scene she describes is discovered. He's not sure if she is really psychic or psychotic and somehow involved in these crimes.

As the book progresses Rick begins to believe in Olivia's abilities and they start working together to solve these terrible crimes. Rick and Olivia risk making themselves targets and unknowingly put people close to them in danger as well.

In Cold Blooded, Lisa Jackson has created what will surely be another best seller for her. I was a little apprehensive when starting this book because I had looked forward to it for so long and was a bit afraid I might be disappointed in the story. This definitely was not the case. Ms Jackson has crafted another tightly woven tale of suspense that grabs the reader from the first chapter and has them reading well into the night.

She has made Olivia an independent woman who doesn't need to lean on anyone and I love this type of character. I was also really glad to see Rick Bentz get his own story because I really liked him from Hot Blooded last year. He is a character with some secrets in his past and he and Olivia complement each other really well.

I also loved the evil feeling she gave The Chosen One. Lisa's detailed description of him had me reading this book with all the lights on.

Ms Jackson has secondary characters that help round out the story and there are some loose ends that have left the door open for an additional novel. I am hoping that the next book will feature Detective Montoya, Rick's partner. (Picture Bobby Simone from NYPD Blue here.)

Thank you Ms Jackson for another page-turning, up-all-night read. I thought Cold Blooded was better than Hot Blooded, and I thought Hot Blooded was one of the best books in 2001. Cold Blooded is on my best list for 2002 and I look forward to see what you come up with in 2003.



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