Rowena‘s review of A Dark Love by Margaret Carroll.
Hero: Ken Kincaid
Heroine: Caroline
Grade: 2.75 out of 5
Only Caroline knows the truth about her husband, the brilliant psychoanalyst whose list of patients includes some of Washington, D.C.’s, most celebrated. Caroline has seen the darkest side of this cruel, controlling psychopath who watches her every move. With only a few precious minutes allotted to her, escape is now or never. Caroline must run for her life . . . as far and fast as she can.
But even two thousand miles isn’t far enough. A new identity, new town, and new love-rugged pro-footballer-turned-outdoorsman Ken Kincaid-won’t protect her. Because Caroline knows Porter will never stop until he’s hunted her down.
And there will be a reckoning . . .
Before I start my review, I wanted to say a few words about the cover of this book. HOW CUTE IS IT? I thought it was an excellent cover and it’s part of what drew me to this book in the first place.
Now, on with my review. This book is labeled as a romantic suspense but I wouldn’t necessarily label it as such because though there was a romantic element in it I don’t think there was enough to classify this as a straight up romantic suspense. This book is about Caroline Hughes-Moross leaving her psycho husband, Dr. Porter Moross under the guise of taking her dog for a walk. When I tell you that her husband was psycho, I mean he was really effing psycho.
He keeps tabs on every single part of Caroline’s life and really, she didnt’ have a life without him. She wasn’t allowed to associate with the neighbors, she wasn’t allowed out of the house without him at her side and she wasn’t allowed to have a thought that he didn’t approve of. When he was displeased with her for any reason, he beat her. It was a very unhealthy relationship and even though we don’t find out about the extent of the damage that Porter inflicted on Caroline, you were still cheering her on when she was running away in the first chapter of the book. You wanted more for her and at the end when she finally got it, I was glad.
There were things about this book that bothered me while I was reading it. Like, in the book we find out that Caroline is much more reserved than she used to be and we find out that she’s been badly abused by her husband and when she finally runs away and she gets to where she was heading, within a couple of days she’s met a new guy and she was attracted. This guy is huge and though he’s extremely nice, she doesn’t know much about him and yet she’s intrigued and she lets him in. I found that to be odd that she would run away from a man who abused her and then jump into a new relationship with someone who was so much stronger than her physically without time to heal. I thought there would be some healing done before she would even be able to have a normal conversation with another man. I didn’t get it. It happened a bit too fast for me to actually believe it.
On top of that, there was Porter. What I didn’t understand about Porter was him finding out Caroline’s password to her email. I don’t understand how he didn’t know that to begin with because he controlled everything about her. With how anal he was abotu keeping tabs on Caroline, I don’t understand how he didn’t know about that email address before she took off but that was a minor detail that bothered me. Porter as a whole was just an icky character, one that I don’t understand how Caroline could have fallen for to begin with. On their first date, she was running a little late and he freaked the hell out on her in the restaurant…how did she not know that he was a looney tune then? *shakes head*
For me, I didn’t think the character development on this book was up to par with what I normally read. There were characters that were introduced and then forgotten, like Tom Fielding. What happened to him? Are we going to find out more about him in another book? I mean, we meet him then we see him in a scene thinking about Caroline. There’s a bit of backstory on him and his marriage and then Caroline and their emails and then that’s it. I would have liked more from him.
Then there was Caroline. I thought Caroline was brave for having the courage to walk away from the abuse. Her plan was fantastic. I was so happy that she was able to pull it off but then once she got settled in Storm’s Pass, her recovery seemed a bit rushed for me. Some other things that bothered the ever living crap out of me was when she would not warn Ken, Nan and Gus, hell everyone that her psycho ex husband was in town and he’s a dangerous man. He may not have looked dangerous (just icky) but he was a complete crazy person and even after she knew that he was around, she kept mum about it until Porter had Ken up in the mountains with a gun to his head.
WTF?
Open your mouth and say something. Those people didn’t deserve to find out the way that they did. That really ticked me off. Ken was a great character though. One that I would have loved to read more about. I was curious about his past, about his present and though I know where his future was headed, it would have been nice to get more back story on him.
Overall this story had some good points but little details of the story chipped away from my enjoyment of the story. I had high hopes for the story and was disappointed that the book didn’t live up to my hopes.
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
I read this one last week. It wasn’t a bad story. I don’t think it should have been label a romantic suspence though.
It is a great cover. Too bad it sounds like the story doesn’t quite reach the same effect. Thanks for the review!
I picked up this book because I’m a huge fan of Sleeping With the Enemy, and the book is similar in a good way.
I had many of the same thoughts you did about the book–but my other really big problem was when Caroline buys a plane ticket and flies from Chicago to Colorado WITHOUT ANY ID.
That simply doesn’t happen anymore. It’s impossible. So right there, I had to stop and decide whether I wanted to go on for the rest of the story.
I did, but, again, I had some of the same issues you did. The writing was very good, though, and the characterization of Porter was fantastic.
Ken was too good to be true, though, and they both fell too hard too fast. And I was po’ed that she didn’t warn the others about her psychotic husband. Another big flaw.
the suspense was the best part of this book. However, out of 5, I give it a 1.75. There was no romance, the writing was too detailed and the story not believable. someone else mentioned sleeping with the enemy and I found it too similar, without any of the good parts.
The writing was terrible, and the plot fantastic. There was no romance to sink my teeth into and I found the whole thing unbelievable and totally unrealistic.