Do you hear the drums Fernando?
“Eden Burning” by Elizabeth Lowell
Elizabeth Lowell is a force to be reckoned with, so I highly doubt that my little raniew is likely to make much difference to her popularity. La Lola’s is but one lone cry in the vast wilderness after all, destined to go unheard by a cruel, unfeeling world. (”What do you mean I’ve had too much to drink Sheridan Sakura Carlotta? You give me back that bottle of Jim Beam you hear!”) She is sadly amongst the ranks of those authors who shall not be named (Starts with “M” and rhymes with Becnaught) who have been lured to the dark side aka Romantic Suspense.
Chase Wilcox is a scientist, who receives a call from his baby brother who works in Hawaii. Chase suspects said baby brother of being involved in an affair with Nicole Ballard, a research assistant, who has flaming red hair. That’s about all I remember about her, so don’t ask me anything else. And because Chase is a victim of a heartless woman’s scheming (naturally), he flies to Hawaii to stop the disintegration of his brother’s marriage. And he decides to do this by sleeping with Nicole himself, and then expose her for the home-wrecker she is. *slaps forehead* But of course! Now why didn’t I think of that? Why confront her with it directly when you can seduce her into revealing her true colours? La Lola, you are such a fool, no wonder Chase Wilcox is a scientist and you are a humble peon.
For those of you in the know, Elizabeth Lowell is famous for incorporating a particular theme into each of her novels. She works the story around a particular kind of object and well-intentioned though she may be, I can honestly say that if I wanted to learn something educational, I wouldn’t be reading romances. I know lots of other people read romances and appreciate the fact that they get to learn something new, but honey, that ain’t me. The only thing I am remotely interested in is learning what to do with handcuffs and whipped cream (Not that I don’t already know what to do, I just like learning variations) What can I say? Shallow, thy name is La Lola.
Elizabeth Lowell has chosen lots of items to focus on in the past. Weaving, sailing, rock-climbing, gold, amber, pearls. I would never have thought I’d be as bored reading about jewellery in my life. What’s next? A novel revolving around eggs? In “Eden Burning” it was volcanoes. And not volcanoes like “Dante’s Peak”, lava boiling alive a pair of hapless tourists kind of volcanoes, but “Today class, flip open the copy of National Geographic” kind of volcano. Not good.
Whilst I undeniably loved “To the Ends of the Earth“, the lunkheaded hero had skirted on the edge in my mind, and was one inch away of being chopped into little pieces and put into a pinata. (It’s not murder if he doesn’t exist). In “Eden Burning” though? Hoo boy.
After sleeping with the heroine (although “heroine” is a bit of a stretch), Chase exposes her to his brother. Not that kind of expose, although that would surely have made the book more interesting. I mean he says that sleeping with her was like sleeping with a corpse, and tells his brother what a tart she is (but in slightly less complimentary terms, which I shall not repeat, as I was brought up well, and not by wolves, like Chase Wilcox.)
Although I feel a bit bad for Nicole, she doesn’t hold my sympathy (boundless though it normally is) for very long. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, her nickname is Pele. Kind of hard to think of the book being highly romantic when I have the image of the heroine as a sweaty Brazillian soccer player kicking a ball around on her head. She should just put us all out of our misery and kick Chase’s ball (notice the use of the singular, as I am convinced this is the only explanation for his ill-temper)
And eventually, she takes Chase back when he drums his away into her heart. No, really. (Nicole is a dancer by night, and dances to the beat of the fiery drums. “Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga!”). So you have Chase pounding away at the drums by way of apology to her, which she naturally accepts. I don’t know, maybe it’s some weird ass mating ritual, like gorillas pounding on their chests, only less classy. I wonder if they can hear my snort in Hawaii. Whatever happened to “I’m sorry” or “Here, take this Happy Diamond necklace as a sign of my guilt?”
I’ve loved some of Elizabeth Lowell’s earlier books. Her medieval trilogy is one of the best ever written, and same goes for her Western “Only” quartet. But “Eden Burning”? Stay far, far away. Better yet, flee to Hawaii.
Terri said,
June 15, 2007 @ 2:27 am
With the heading of that review, I love your reference to the ABBA song!