COLD HEARTED BY BEVERLY BARTON – SKIP THIS SOAP OPERA.
Cold Hearted by Beverly Barton
Pros: started out Ok
Cons: but I quickly lost interest
Started out Ok, and I was genuinely intrigued. But then it dragged on. And on and on. Until, by the end, I had lost interest.
I’m talking about Beverly Barton’s Cold Hearted. You’ve got a main character who’s either a beloved saint or a cruel serial killer. Or both. Then you’ve got her wacky family members who rally around her. Extolling her virtues. All while a bunch of people who get close to her find themselves dead.
Why is Jordan leaving behind a trail of dead people? Some weird coincidence, or is Jordan, herself, a murderer? Or, is someone else doing the killing… And if so, what could possibly be their motive? These are the questions keeping Rick up at night. Hired to get to the truth, he doesn’t know which way to turn, who to trust. But this doesn’t stop him from falling in love with Jordan, or from hopping into her bed. After all, that’s what every investigator does, when he’s unsure if the woman is a murderer. End eye-rolling now.
Basically, you end up with a soap opera. By this, I mean there are tons of characters and none of them are exactly who they appear to be. Each has secrets, each has their own stuff going on. And then there’s one character to whose private thoughts we are privy. We don’t know exactly who she is, just that she’s a she, and she’s the murderer. Whether she’s Jordan, or someone else we’ve come to know, we have no idea. We just know she’s out there, and she’s planning her next move.
All of this could have made for a fun book. Except that the characters were absolutely awful. There was not a one I particularly liked or trusted. None felt real. Frankly, they came off more like cartoons than real people. With such a group of nincompoops running around, the story just kept going on and on, and I completely lost interest.
Finally, thankfully, it ended. And what a disappointing ending. I kept waiting for a great payoff. Something that would make the previous 400 pages of nonsense all worth it. But such never came.
Skip Cold Hearted.
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