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Clutches And Curses (2011)

by Dorothy Howell(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0758253303 (ISBN13: 9780758253309)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Kensington

series

Haley Randolph

review 1: The only way to review this book is to give it one star which it DOES NOT DESERVE. I give it zero. An accessories fashion themed mystery series. I was attracted to the book because it was set in a department store similar to a place I worked for a decade, but this is such a stinky book I hated it by page 10, and put it down at the end of Chapter 1 on page 12. There is nothing about this book worth spending time on. Haley, age 24 has no socially redeeming characteristics. If she had worked in my real place of employment she wouldn’t have lasted a week. By page 10 I knew she hated her job, and hated most of her co-workers, She steals from her employer by overstaying her breaks complaining about how awful it would be to get a special assignment in another town working wi... moreth a grand opening, and then goes immediately from the breakroom to hide from her supervisor and customers sneaking yet another break nesting in comforters in the stockroom where she consumes the entire quantity of food samples she’s been assigned to share with her customers, a special assignment she, what a suprise, hates. On the way from the long break to the extra stolen break, she avoids as many customers as she can, hates every one of them she comes in contact with and is rude to the ones she cannot avoid. In my real world, these special assignments are plums awarded to the best of the best employees, a cherished privilege one is honored to be offered. Its not something a supervisors assigns to torture the worker bees. Then we switch to Haley’s apartment where she is bitterly backbiting her boyfriend and other acquaintances. And by then we also know she attends college but cheats on her tests by copying from others, and didn’t learn anything in high school either.There is nothing about this bimbo that would make me want to spend another minute with her, and I’m sorry for the 5 minutes I wasted. It is beyond me how even one book with this person as the leading character got into print, let alone five. Usually after I have read a book I trade in as many as possible at the used book store for credit, and those not accepted I donate to a local retirement home library. This one I would not inflict on anyone else. It goes directly to the round file.
review 2: This is my first Howell novel and I truly have enjoyed it! The details that Howell uses regarding the purses, the scenery (Vegas and the surrounding areas), and the Haley’s thoughts and feelings are fantastic. Reading first person (and writing it) is sometimes difficult for me to place myself into the story, but Howell has done an exceptional job pulling me into Haley’s self-absorbed life.I do feel that I would have understood Haley more had I read the previous three novels in this series. She seems a bit selfish and appears to be a ‘me’ person a majority of the time, but in the end she knows she has to be selfless every now and again. There are three other side characters that I felt could have been developed further, yet once again, had I read the others, I may have known them more. I do look forward to obtaining the three other novels to find out more about Haley and the other characters, and to see what man she does select to live her life ‘happily ever after’.I look forward to adding the previous three novels to my TBR file, as well as other novels by Howell that may come about in the Haley Randolph Mystery series. less

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