Arabesque, $5.99, ISBN 1-58314-302-5
Paranormal Romantic Suspense, 2003
Danielle Ritchey is a psychic cop that has been dreaming of a hot hunky hunk at night. She has one burning desire in life, and that’s to capture the killer that murdered her mother. She meets gospel singer Whit Steele when this psychic cop rear ends his car. That’s very reassuring – a psychic cop that can’t drive or foresee this accident. They fall in love at first sight, or so Ms Craft tells me, and then Dani has to go solve a few murders taking place all over town. And that’s it. Whit shows up once in a while to remind me that he’s part of the story, not that I care one whit (haw haw) because he’s barely a character in this story. It’s basically inept cop Dani trying to save the day, nab the killer, put Mommy’s ghost to rest, and hope she does all this before everybody gets bored and leaves for livelier parties.
It is one thing if the mystery element is compelling to make up for the underdeveloped romance, but here, the identity of the killer is predictable. The cops aren’t that smart if they take a few hundred pages to nab that guy. It is also quite unlikely that everyone that knows and works with Dani also readily accepts that she is psychic. Since the author pretty much gives away the killer’s identity from the start, it’s a long, dull wait until the cops figure out what I already know from the start. Also, Ms Craft’s treatment of police procedures don’t have that authentic ring to them, making me feel as if I’m reading a romantic suspense from an author that’s out of her depths.
Since I don’t know anything about the main characters (the author provides no clue as to Dani or Whit’s personality, motivations, or psyche – all I know of these characters are the bare minimum like name, job, and the fact that these two have vaguely lousy marriages in their past) and the suspense elements are mediocre and far from riveting, Francine Craft fails to provide any reason to read Born to Love You unless for some reason one wants to experience what acute boredom can really feel like. But even so, won’t it be better to buy a fly swatter and start chasing flies around the house instead? At least then one gets to burn some calories in the process.
