Die For You

Book No: 59
Title: Die for You
Author: Lisa Unger
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Completed: 11/9/09
No. of Pages: 352
Rating: 3/5*****

I’ve been a fan of Lisa Unger since her first book “Beautiful Lies” was published and I very much enjoyed her next two books. This book however was not up to par with her previous works.

The storyline has a good premise, what if your husband leaves for work and then disappears? What happens when you learn that your life for the past 5 years has been a total lie? This is exactly what happens to Isabel Raine; Marcus Raine goes to work, disappears and leaves the wreckage of all his lies and deceptions behind. Unable to understand what has happened Isabel begins to look for answers and puts herself and everyone around her at risk.

There were several things I did not like about this book, the main one was the protagonist. I just didn’t like Isabel very much, for a successful bestselling novelist she does some really bone head things. There were too many subplots; her sister Linda’s perfect marriage that is not quite so ideal; Detective Crowe’s marital problems; the death of the father that haunts both Isabel and Linda. Although I understand the question of trust is a huge part of the story it just seemed a little overdone and melodramatic. I don’t like when a book tells instead of shows, where two characters explain everything by having that confessional conversation, I find that to be a cop-out, it’s just too easy. Perhaps my two biggest problems involved the Prologue. Why write a prologue to a suspense novel that takes away all the suspense? Part of the fun of this kind of book is the question of what is going to happen. This thrill is gone from the start since we know who is telling the story. If you do write a prologue it should match up with the scene it foretells; the two scenes were completely different and that really annoyed me.

The book moves pretty quickly and the writing is generally very good, so I will probably read Ms. Unger’s next book. I’d also like to see a book that is a little different than the theme she has written about in all four of these books- although they are different stories they seem to be following the same pattern, I’d really like to see her tackle a different premise.