Savannah Passion by Alan Chaput
I’ll have to start out this review by admitting that though
I liked parts of this story and can still recommend it, it was actually pretty
far outside my interests. Everyone has their vices as far as entertainment is
concerned, mine are violence and horror, in that I actually love action scenes
that are a tad too intense and even overkill. This story was more towards the
sexually charged side of the house with scenes about attraction that focused on
the issue to a degree that it stopped being believable. Nothing was over kill, but
in the end it was too much for my personal taste. I’m explaining this as I know
that the reader may be wondering why here I’m sure I will sound a little
reserved in my praise. I’m not saying the story was bad, just not my genera. I
also feel the need to point out that this story feels like it has a very severe
change of tone from the last Savannah story, Savannah Fire. This can be
a good or bad idea, it risks turning away fans of the first story, however in
any given series different stories have to be different enough to warrant being
written in a connecting line, so they don’t sound like the writer is just
writing the same story over and over. Thus, enjoying the first story means you
may like the second, and you may not. Same setting, similar ideas, but very different
characters and presentation style.
On to the score. Out of a possible 12 points, this story got
a 9. The story itself is interesting and there is plenty of suspense, however
this time the romance/relationships part of our romance suspense novel, was far
more the focus. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, I can say this
probably beats out any romance novel you’ll find at the store, as the plot and
characters never take a back seat to romantic fantasies. The romances
themselves are also rather interesting and fleshed out, rather than one
dimensional.
As to any objectionable material out of a possible -25 this
story gets a -3 for sexual themes that are more prevalent that many may enjoy. The
constant references to characters sizing each other up may make some people
uncomfortable and there is a scene in these first eight chapters that comes
very close to a detailed account of a sexual encounter.
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Savannah Passion is the second story in Alan Chaput’s
Savannah series. This story is dramatically different from the first keeping
the themes from becoming worn out. I would actually recommend this story to
fans of the romance/suspense genre. The romantic relationships are three
dimensional and there is no attempt to create ridiculous relational archetypes.
Instead, just as in the last story, characters feel like that are in situations
that actually could happen. This story is really a pleasant change of pace from
overly dramatic romance novels. The suspense angle in this story is not as
emphasized as in the last, but it is present and palpable.
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1. Spelling/Grammar
Score: 1
Again, Alan Chaput is very good at addressing grammatical issues.
It was very rare that I would recognize an actual error or misconception that
actually impeded my ability to read the story in any way. The one or two errors
I did see were so minor that I could have read past them without knowing the
difference.
2. Interesting Plot
Score: 1
Instead of following one person this time the story follows
several characters whom one may assume are eventually going to meet up. Each
person is tied together somehow to a large conspiracy, which is now forcing
changes in their private lives that I get the sense will eventually force
things to come to a head.
3. Good Direction
Score: ½
I actually had several problems with the direction of this
story. For one, the conspiracy that ties the individuals of this story together
is never named nor is its role really explained. I would accept that, given the
nature of the suspense genera, I should wait for an explanation, except that
Shawn, a leading character, is actively working for the conspiracy in the story
and we aren’t told his roll, position, who he reports to or how he got
involved. I suppose the same was true in the last story about Trey, but this
seemed even more frustrating at times as it wasn’t just people talking about a
change in the conspiracy’s government, but the story was starting to go into
detail about the inner workings of the conspiracy without saying anything about
its general purposes.
My second issue was that I couldn’t figure out the story’s
end goal. Was the goal to see Hayley and Shawn reunited as husband and wife? I
suppose that was a problem that took place in the narrative, however it seemed
more like a subplot that the two were splitting up as the event had little
influence on characters like Augusta. Another interesting event occurs where
Shawn tries to rescue a young woman, but the situation doesn’t occur until
chapter seven even if it is relevant to earlier events.
In the first story I sensed that the main mysteries were,
how Patricia was connected to a strange stalker, how the conspiracies power
structure would be fixed without a power struggle, what really happened to Patricia’s
mother, and just what was the Cotton Coalition. Here the main conflicts seem to
be, will Hayley and Shawn split up, what is the unnamed conspiracy Shawn works
for and will Augusta succeed in getting dirt published on a person called Trey
that she really has no personal connection to. The problem with the first plot
is that, as mentioned before, Hayley and Shawn’s relationship is only important
to them and their family. The second plot is hard to follow because we see the
inner working of an organization with no clue as to the nature or purpose of
said organization. Finally, Augusta’s plot seems almost out of left field as
she seems to be pursuing goals that have nothing to do with any of the other
characters in the story and her goals involve publishing an article or two on a
character that may have been in the last book, but that she has no connection
to and no one else in this book does either.
The story’s direction can be followed, but it’s impossible
to figure out the end goal and very difficult to understand some of the ideas
being expressed.
4. Author Interest
Score: 1
Again, the author of this story replies to questions about
it and talks about it regularly as it is part of an ongoing series.
5. Believable Main Characters
Score: ¾
The basic personalities and situations the characters get
into are very believable and a played like events that could happen in real
life. However the story starts to play like one of those ultra-realistic crime
dramas on TV that you could completely believe, save for the fact that a brand
new violent crime is featured in the exact same town every single week. Here
the element that pulls you out of the realism is the over emphasis on sexual
attraction. Every single person any character meets is immediately sized up to
the degree that even the eleven year old girl Maxine does this with her twelve
year old boyfriend (though with her the situation is approached in a gentler
fashion, so she does nothing that might seem bazaar for a young girl). Yes, I
am aware that attraction is part of the human experience and is essential to
biological organisms, but as humans, biological impulses are only part of how
we react to each other. The number of women I take notice of for sexual attractiveness
on a daily basis is very few, even though I am attracted to them naturally. When
I talk to a woman to interview for college for instance, I usually don’t think
about how attractive she is (I might have been more hormonal at say, 13, but at
28, I can curb my enthusiasm a little better). In this story, even if a woman
is at something as mundane as a parent teacher conference, she will immediately
begin examining all the men in the room and even try to ask “would you do him?”
of her close friend. This makes the full grown and even middle aged men and
women sound like teenagers, and clashes when the subject comes up that a few them
are even married. In the last story I didn’t find it odd when Patricia thought
about her husband’s attractiveness when they were in a room alone together.
However when Hayley, a woman who’s been cheated on several times and is shown
to be very loyal to her husband, is constantly sizing men up even in business
settings, things start to sound weird to me.
6. Likeable Main Characters
Score: 1
Actually I did find that the characters had interesting lives
and personalities. Yes their sexual drives were over developed, but they all
had concerns, hang ups, beliefs and even life goals. I especially liked Hayley,
who set up an interesting contrast of sexual purity (despite sizing up several
guys save for her father and two men who held her a gun point) and commitment
in a sea of people whose personalities were rather sleazy. Interestingly, by
the end of the eighth chapter, I found myself actually rooting for a dirty
cheating husband, Shawn, as he tried to valiantly save a woman who he was… sigh…
constantly referring to how much he wanted to touch and sleep with.
7. Likeable Supporting Characters
Score: ¾
Some of the characters in this story that could have been
considered side characters, such as Hayley’s daughter Maxine, were interesting.
However characters like the gunmen at the beginning, the girl Shawn was trying
to save and Maxine’s boyfriend, would often come and go with no hint of a complex
story or personality behind them. They filled their roles, some even having rather
large ones, and never did anything that made you feel like they weren't just
filling a spot.
8. Good Scene Description
Score: 1
Nothing about the scene descriptions stuck out this time,
but just like in the last story, I got a good sense of where the characters
were and what was important at all times. Really when a story has a lot going
on at once, I find that minimal quick descriptions are often a must to keep the
reader from losing focus and getting confused. This feels especially true in
contemporary settings, as when nothing being described is out of the ordinary,
describing something in detail often means that it’s somehow important.
9. Targeting
Score: 1
In my last review I speculated that the story was written
for a Christian audience. I have to say that I’m starting to understand that
really the writer was trying to make his story reflect his lead character, who
herself was a strong Christian. This story had very little for the religious in
it and was more targeted at a romance centered crowd. I think the dynamic
change in tone might be a bad idea personally, however, if taken by itself the story
is well targeted as a secular romance/suspense novel.
10. Broad Appeal
Score: 1
I must stress that the characters in this story are not
vapid, even if they do talk and think about sexuality a little more than seems
realistic. All of the main cast have depth and complex lives. I think the focus
on a variety of different life styles and relationships as well as very
different characters (from children to adults, married, to single to even
cheaters) will be a draw for many people. It probably won’t fly well with
people trying hard to avoid sexual themes for whatever reason, and again, there’s
nothing for the kids, but I would hardly call “everyone else” a niche audience.
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