A Dark Love
Margaret Carroll
book reviews:
· general fiction
· chick lit/romance
· sci-fi/fantasy
· graphic novels
· nonfiction
· audio books

Click here for the curledup.com RSS Feed

· author interviews
· children's books @
   curledupkids.com
· DVD reviews @
   curledupdvd.com

newsletter
win books
buy online
links

home

for authors
& publishers


for reviewers

click here to learn more




Buy *A Dark Love* by Margaret Carroll online

A Dark Love
Margaret Carroll
Avon
Paperback
400 pages
August 2009
rated 3 of 5 possible stars

buy this book now or browse millions of other great products at amazon.com
previous reviewnext review

Not as gripping as it could have been

The story of an abused wife leaving her husband, trying to hide from him knowing that he will be searching for her, isn’t particularly novel. There’s a great deal of inherent suspense in this kind of story - will she ever feel safe, will she fit into a new life, can she love again.

These aspects do occur in A Dark Love but aren’t as much at the forefront as I might have thought. Slightly unusually, we spend as much time with the mad, abusive, stalker husband as we do with the heroine, Caroline Moross. Her husband, Porter, is a famous psychoanalyst but is also clearly seriously mentally deranged and has made Caroline’s life a misery. When she escapes with just the clothes she is wearing and her little dog, Pippin, she makes her way to the town of Storm Pass in Colorado. There she finds employment looking after an elderly lady and catching the attention of Ken Kincaid, retired football player and outdoorsman.

But Porter is after Caroline. We follow the trail whereby Porter finds out where Caroline is, which partly includes an email correspondence with a former friend, although this aspect of the story isn’t adequately concluded. As one would expect, there’s a showdown during a storm and various other revelations.

A Dark Love isn't entirely successful, however. First, it's hard to see what it was about Caroline that so attracts everyone’s attention and help. Secondly, the bits focused on Porter are a bit dull. Thirdly, several plot threads aren’t completed. Fourthly... well, there were many other aspects I didn’t like, although I did very much like the setting in Colorado, which was well described. But there wasn’t enough about this book to lift it above the label ‘average.’



Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Helen Hancox, 2011

Also by Margaret Carroll:

buy *A Dark Love* online
click here for more info
Click here to learn more about this month's sponsor!


fiction · sf/f · comic books · nonfiction · audio
newsletter · free book contest · buy books online
review index · links · · authors & publishers
reviewers

site by ELBO Computing Resources, Inc.