Review- Heartless

There is something to be said for comfort and consistency. There is even something to be said for knowing exactly what you are getting, no matter how good or bad.

But sometimes, it all gets to be a little much.

Danielle Steel, old skool Elizabeth Lowell, and Diana Palmer all come to mind when someone mentions the same plot being retooled over and over and over again.

And so Diana Palmer's latest, Heartless, is really not a new release at all.

I have found (through a thoroughly unscientific study) that there are two types of Diana Palmer stories:

1. The hero and heroine (for whom there is always at LEAST an 8 year age gap) have known each other since she was jail bait and he was walking the line between perv and tormented male grappling with his inappropriate lust. They have lots of sex like, on her 18th birthday and then he leaves in a fit of conscience. She has a Secret Baby, he returns a decade later to find a mysterious 10-year-old child, who he assumes to be hers and not his, since she *clearly* turned into a huge slut following his abandonment. Big Misunderstandings, Reconciliation Sex, and Vague Threats to the Heroine's Safety ensue.

2. The hero and heroine (for whom there is always at LEAST an 8 year age gap) have known each other since she was jail bait and he was walking the line between perv and tormented male grappling with his inappropriate lust. He leaves before they have a chance to do the horizontal mambo, and then comes back a decade later (after having been married, and possibly having a child) to find her Still Untouched, because she had nothing to do in the meantime but become a twenty-eight year old with zero sexual experience and no character evolution at all.

(Obviously these are both incredibly true to real life scenarios. Obviously.)

So where to begin? In Heartless the hero and heroine (I don't even know their names, to be honest) were formerly step-brother and step-sister, he left, got engaged to a bitch who was mean to his step-sister, and then came back when his engagement was broken and the heroine was facing Imminent Danger. There's a Big Reunion, lots of weepy, talky sex (she does have negative amounts of experience after all, but he swears to make it "good for her") and then the danger resolves itself or something. Did I mention the fact that no more than 5 book-time minutes (read: 30 reading-time seconds) after the emotional sexxoring, he announces that she is probably pregnant? "It only takes once" aside, um... are we still being that stupid in 2009? Really??

I'm not sure what is worse: the fact that 20+ books all fit into the two categories above, or the fact that the characters have not even bothered to be brought into modernity over the period of time it has taken to write said books. Or the fact that the next time a Diana Palmer book comes out, I'll probably pick it up at the library anyway (on no Keeper Shelf will they be put) just to make sure that everything is still the same.

Because like I said, there is something vaguely comforting about that.


Rating:
Plot- -1 (the fact that I predicted the whole thing to KBoog after reading the book jacket... BAD)
Characters- .25 (were there any characters? I'm pretty sure they couldn't be picked out of a lineup)
Sex- .75 (warm, but rehashed from every previous book)
Style- .25 (Basic basic basic)
Consumption- 1 (I guess... I read all I needed to read in the library in 10 minutes)


TOTAL- 1.25