An emotional pile-driver, that takes you from the windy streets of Chicago to the California heat
Cole Sage, a once brilliant journalist, has just about reached rock bottom. Haunted by the longing for the woman he lost, Cole is jarred to a crossroads when a hostage negotiator is killed in front of him. Later, Cole is stunned to receive a one line cry for help from his one great love. Face to face with his past, and an uncertain future he tries to find her estranged daughter.
The path to keeping his word is blocked at every turn by the husband who abandoned her, his shady real estate deals, violent con men, street thugs and the lure of a fortune in diamonds that unite them. The anger, sorrow, and crippling guilt of twenty years fires Cole’s drive to keep a promise, that in the end, will heal and return the soul to the great journalist.
Beaten, bloody but determined, Cole Sage conquers greed and hatred with a strength that only love and a will as hard as diamond can achieve.
My Take:
The cover art is what immediately caught my attention. Ragged colors, slashed across the cover, brilliant title suggests mystery, romance, a sexy name with hints of intrigue. Then started reading. There is so much minute detail of every minute Cole lives, I’m surprised we don’t know what toilet paper he uses. To be that emotionally crippled about an ex or ‘the one that got away’, is too eye-roll worthy to relate here.
The book is just too detailed about minutia that it leaves the reader brain dead. As another reviewer suggested, Maxwel’s book is just too cheesy to endure. Passages are too long, he wallows in one scene after another, all the men have over-the-top-testosterone, something i’ve long despised in reading fiction. Give them some faults, show they endure pain like everyone else, do they even get tired?
The editor could easily have cut out all the unnecessary exposition scenes, added intrigue, and made the characters more interesting. I could not get past chapter eight. I give two stars. Maxwel can write but I suggest less expostion, descriptive scenes and more action.
Brick ONeil 