The Senator's Wife (Audio Cassette)

I do feel that KR made her characters rather shallow for the reader, not giving us enough information to feel some warm for them. But I did not come away feelig like other readers did about Ronnie and Tom. Ronnie was young & beautiful, with her guard up since she was the 2nd wife, accused of breaking up a marriage (though it was on the rocks before she even showed up). She thought having material things and money would feel the void of love until she found someone that showed her kindness and later on love. Remember (if you have already read it), that Ronnie had not reached out to any other man during her marriage until Tom came on the scene. So she was trying to deal with it.

Tom was hired by Ronnie's husband as a campaign adviser to help get his campaign back on track. He, himself, was in the process of rebuilding his business with his partner and was good at his business. He started working with Ronnie, seeing right off a woman that was being treated harshly by the public as well as being alone in her private life. He reached out to her with lust in his mind when they first got together sexually- but then it turned into love, realizing that they cared for each other. Doesn't that happen in a lot of relationships?

Then there is the murder of the senator and Ronnie is accused of doing it. It turns into a "who done it" story. It's not the best I have read, but it sure isn't the worse, either. I really wanted to judge it with a 3 1/2 stars but felt bad about all of the other low reviews that I went with a 4 stars. Read it for yourself and see what you think!

Tom had the potential to be a real intelligent, magnetic and sexy character. But the author failed to demonstrate how good he was as a political consultant, worse, he appeared to just fall for Ronnie for her looks and body, not to mention his double standard with his wife's adultery and his partner's fling.

All the unmoral and irresponsible actions were almost justified because the characters fell in love with each other. I failed to see love between them other than lust. All I could say that perhaps they really deserved each other, very superficially. For a relationship which lust formed the basis, the sex scenes were unimaginative and stale. If the author decided to write a trashy book, at least make it hot and erotic.

The plot was very amateurish, especially coming from Karen Robards. The sub plot of the murder on board the ship was distracting and converged with the main story too late and too weakly. I always love her books but this one was too disappointing. My advice is: give this book a miss.

Sorry, Karen, but this one is just hard to stomach.