Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #956633 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-24
• Released on: 2003-02-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Booklist
Valence St. Charles, former New Orleans street kid turned art curator, sneaks into the Parisian home of T'ang Jian-Shan, hoping to convince him to display his legendary Asian sword collection, but instead she leads one of his tong father's assassins to him and barely saves Jian-Shan's life while being injured herself. As she recovers, they fall in love but are thwarted by demons from his past; her frustration over his formality, stoicism, and seeming indifference to his daughter; Jian-Shan's father, who wants him back in the tong or dead; and government agents out to capture Jian-Shan's father. Helped by Raven, an international model and former U.S. government agent, they manage to uncover all the bad guys, get rid of the father, find out the truth about Jian-Shan's first wife's death, and commit to marry. When Val and Jian-Shan finally make love, it's well worth all the suspense for lovers and readers alike. In spite of some outdated elements, Hall's thriller romance, the first in a trilogy, keeps the reader's interest from start to finish. Mary K. Chelton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Not a good romance
I like SL Viehl's Stardoc books (Hall is Viehl). They're tightly written with lots of suspense and good characters and relationships. For some reason that didn't translate over into the romance genre.

This book had far too many plot holes and gaps in logic. We were given too many flat characters instead of a couple well rounded characters with depth. The relationship between the main h/h was told to us instead of shown - they love all of a sudden when we see no reason for it and we're expected to believe it. Suspense often consists of interrupting sex time and again until we no longer care, and also consists of the heroine doing stupid things to get everyone in danger (she risks her life to talk to the hero, then once she gets there she's determined to run away, then once she runs away she's determined to talk to the hero. ???!). And worst of all, the characters and their actions or thoughts just don't make sense (when the hero traps the heroine in her hotel room, she plans to escape out the window and is disappointed when he tells her she can't because they're on the 12th floor. What, she didn't know this after staying in the room for days? Good thing she happened to get out on the right floor when she took the elevator up the previous page. This is just one of times when you ask what planet these people are from.).

These are all the characteristics to me of an old style of romance that went out of fashion because it's just not satisfying. I prefer characters with depth acting in a manner consistent to what we know of them, in a story that focuses on their relationships. I just could not like this book.

Very interesting suspense thriller
Museum curator Valance St. Charles heads to Paris, France, determined to lure enigma Oriental millionaire Jian-Shan T'ang in to letting her museum display his White Tiger sword collection. Her chauvinistic boss Drake Scribner makes it clear that if she fails, she will not have a job to return to. Jian-Shan's business manager Madelaine abruptly tells Val that Jian will under no circumstances meet with her regarding the swords. The ever-tenacious Val stows away in the trunk of Jian's limo, and makes her way to his estate, only to interrupt an assassination attempt on Jian and daughter Lily. Jian-Shan feels responsible for Val's subsequent injuries, and vows to protect her from those determined to see him dead.

Jian's Chinese Tong chief father is attempting to bring his son back into his organization, and will stop at nothing to accomplish this. Val finds herself caught in the middle, and soon she and Jian are on the run from his father and government agents determined to either capture or kill them. Val and Jian's relationship sizzles, and little Lily complicates this situation even more. They each carry a lot of baggage, but as danger surrounds them, they begin to realize their haunted pasts are best left there, if they can live long enough to see this crisis through.

Evil surrounds Jian's father, and the hurt he has caused others in horrendous. Traitors have infiltrated Jian's life, and with a strong cast of secondary characters, add a few surprises in this fast paced suspense drama. The exotic Orient is not frequent subject matter, and makes for a very interesting read. Lovers of taught romantic suspense will enjoy "The Deepest Edge", the first in a trilogy.

Cluttered with too many minor characters.
Val St. Charles is a curator for a museum in the united states. When she learns of a fabulous collection of antique swords is in the private collection of an elderly man in France, she convinces her male chauvinist pig of a boss to allow her the time off to see if she can procure the collection for the museum.

Unfortunately, when Val arrives she inadvertently gets involved in a plot involving the Chinese Mafia. Also, she finds the man she's supposed to meet - Jian Shan is far from the elderly man she presumed, but a slender attractive long-haired millionaire (too bad the cover shows a short haired man in silohuette).

I really enjoyed the deepest edge, at least the first part. But towards the second part of the novel I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief. There were far too many minor characters taking up a significant chunk of the lime light (obviously waiting in the wings for their own books) that I lost track of what the main couple were doing. Also, I found it unrealistic that a modern heroine of Val's spunk and initiative would allow her supervisor to speak to her in the manner in which she does. Can we say 'sexual harrassment?' Please.

Overall, this novel started out great, but left me wishing for more.