Suite 606

J.D. Robb has done it again! All her books are great and "Suite 606" is no exception. Loved it!

Are you and Eve Dallas fan? Included is a short story that you will love. As usual, Eve is on her toes solving a crime that started at a party. The book includes other short stories also. I enjoyed all of them but Eve is the reason I bought this book.

What a disappointment. I buy these anthologies to get introduced to new authors -- that's how I've discovered new favorites like Angela Knight, Lora Leigh and Nalini Singh. But apart from the J.D. Robb story, which was excellent (a miracle since Nora's books in her Nora Roberts line have gotten so formulaic), I wouldn't read one of the other three author's work, even if I were given the books at no charge. Their stories were so poorly written and oddly constructed that in one case (Mary Blayney) I wondered if this was actually a 10th grader's English composition. The other two weren't much better. And the supposed tie-in to "Suite 606" that should have served as a connecting thread between the stories was virtually non-existent. If it were not for the Eve Dallas story, I would have rated this one a minus one star and returned it to the store for a refund.

Save your money.

Suite 606
Three stories each connect somehow with a Suite 606, then the last story concerns time travellers that make cameo appearances inside the first stories. A potentially interesting idea, but they didn't pull it off.
This book may be of marginal interest to devoted fans of Eve Dallas, since it contains a short story about her. However, it's not a very good Eve Dallas story. The other stories feature cardboard characters and threadbare plots.
Eve Dallas fans should buy one of the other books in the In Death series instead, such as Salvation in Death. Everybody else, save your money.

Ritual in Death by J.D. Robb ~ While attending a fancy party, Eve and Roarke are thrown into another mystery when a stranger, naked and covered in blood head to toe, holding a knife in his hand, stumbles into the room from down the hall. But Jackson Pike doesn't remember what happened, and the more he tries, the more the pain in his head becomes intolerable. Other witnesses are like Pike: unable to remember and too much pain. But that doesn't stop the team from bringing down the murderers.

Another incredible story in the series, even if it is shorter than usual. I really like how Eve follows her instincts, and no matter the argument between her and Roarke, they still manage to come to the same conclusion. What I liked in this one was how Eve was forced, once again, to think outside the conventional box. Excellent mystery and decisive detective work along with colourful, believable and incredible characters make for one hell of a story.

Love Endures by Mary Blayney ~ A man is robbed and murdered after winning a large some at betting. Grieving, his widow and daughter take off for the country for a few months, only to return to find his ghost is haunting his room, and the one way he can leave, at least by way of Heaven, he needs to right his past wrongs. But can trusts and broken hearts be mended?

Oh, you bet! I loved how this story came about. I truly adored Summer's `I'll be damned - come hell or high water' attitude when she finds the ghost of her husband talking to her daughter. She's known that he's lied, even worse with the dire enough situations he's left her in. Having lied to even his own brother, now he won't trust Summer either. But the worst was finding out that he lied to both, Summer, and his best friend, Lord Stephen Bradley. Summer and Stephen had fallen in love right before her wedding to Reggie, but he wanted the money their marriage could bring him, and lied to them both. To him, it was a bet and nothing more - he liked to win. I was truly glad that, although they butted heads, Summer and Stephen finally found the truth and sent Reggie on his way.

Cold Case by Ruth Ryan Langan ~ When his partner is shot and killed by a bullet meant for him, Sam Hunter quits the force and decides to revisit a small a town in Vermont where he spent a long-ago college semester. But it seems his hotel room was given to someone else and he's forced out into a storm, in search of a bed & breakfast he remembered. A flash of something looking like a woman forces him to slam on his brakes and straight into a ditch. Slightly wounded, he gets out of the car in search of the woman he saw when he stumbles onto a house named Storm Hill. He's invited in by Mary Catherine McGivern and her younger sister, Anna. While her stepfather has allowed him to stay until the storm passes, he becomes more and more agitated - seems that their mother, his wife, had supposedly run off with a hired hand, and he's refused to keep a stranger in his house for long since then. But unexpectedly, Sam and Mary Catherine fall in love, with a sad, and happy, ending?

I have to say it even if it hurts me to: I wasn't impressed with this one. And I have never, ever, said that about a Ruth Langan story in my life! While I really felt Sam and his pain, I felt nothing for Mary Catherine or her sister. None, nada, zip, zilch. I didn't feel them falling in love whatsoever, and the ending infuriated me. Why she would push him out of the way of a blow meant for him, ending her own life, the same as his partner did, had me upset and angry in disbelief. To give a man who endured so much a second blow was enough to make me livid. And while he learns the truth about their mother and what Hoag has done, not once now but twice, he's thrown out into the ice storm by Hoag who intends for him to disappear and die in it. But then Sam comes to, a woman helps him out of the car, onto a snowmobile and into the bed and breakfast, Storm Hill. It seems that Kate is related to the family who has owned the land for centuries. Seems Anna had managed to escape Hoag, and once Hoag died, the land was returned to the McGiverns. But then we're left with speculation as to what Sam is going to do next. Seems that Kate is just as beautiful as Mary Catherine. But I got the willies when it's suggested that he may fall in love with Kate and stay - when shortly before, he had been in love with her great-great-aunt. Only one word came to mind with that: Ewe! Sorry, Ms. Langan, but I just didn't feel it this time, and that almost makes me want to cry! I've never disliked any of your stories, but this one just didn't cut it for me.

Wayward Wizard by Mary Kay McComas ~ On an unsupervised visit with her son, Marie Barnett takes her son Hugh to a baseball exhibit at a museum. Once done there, they vist another exhibit when lightening from a storm raging outside plays havoc with the lights and security system. Hugh touches, fiddles with one of the exhibits and disappears. Having seen what he son had done, Marie does the same, and ends up where he is, several centuries before their time, in the home of Nester Baraka of Viator, a wizard who supposedly can displace time with the help of two stone, Petroleon and Sellithos. But Sellithos had been stolen from him long ago. He wants to get it back, and he's hoping he can jump with them through time and find it, returning them to their rightful place. Meanwhile, Marie and Hugh grow closer, his anger at his mother slowly ebbing. And Marie and Nester seem to be falling in love, dispite how badly they fight it, for he needs to return to his time, while she must stay in hers.

Oh, I loved this story! We hear the explanation from Marie about why her son is angry with her. Now only do we feel that anger towards her as well, but we feel a great deal of empathy for Marie as well. For Marie has gone to hell and back, not once, but twice. An accident that causes her to lose her unborn baby, an addiction to prescription meds, rehab, a relapse, and a longer time in rehab. While her now ex-husband is understanding enough to help her with rehab the second time around, her son is resentful, for Marie was supposed to get better the first time around and come back for him. But this time, she's kicked her habit and has promised herself and her son that she'll never go back to who she was. But it's taking more time than she'd like. It was great to see them jumping to different time periods, the details are spectacular. And I loved watching Nester become aquainted with they way we speak, our phrases and sayings. Watching the banter back and forth between the three is excellent.

What I thought was great: how Nester, Marie and Hugh are tied into all four stories. We get a glimpse of them in the first three, and it's fun watching them pop up into the stories while McComas is telling hers. I got a kick out of that. Ladies, I hope you collaborate again - this was fun!