Meredith P. (Francophile) reviewed Our Lady of Immaculate Deception (Roxy Abruzzo, Bk 1) on + 52 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A new series begins from Nancy Martin, author of the Blackbird series. Roxy Abruzzo, a TOUGH woman with a past that includes a Mafia don for an uncle and an interesting former lover now back in the neighborhood, is about as far from the upper class ladies of Martin's former series as you can get! Roxy's Pittsburgh is as much a character in the book as she is, and adds much to the ambience.
Roxy works as an architectural artifact salvager and seller, and is surrounded by a group of oddball characters that are her "family." She removes a 7-foot statue of a naked man from a site about to be razed, gets mixed up in the murder of a wealthy aquaintance, and finds she has to extricate someone she loves from danger.
This is a grittier story than before from Martin, but very good, and well-written.
Roxy works as an architectural artifact salvager and seller, and is surrounded by a group of oddball characters that are her "family." She removes a 7-foot statue of a naked man from a site about to be razed, gets mixed up in the murder of a wealthy aquaintance, and finds she has to extricate someone she loves from danger.
This is a grittier story than before from Martin, but very good, and well-written.
Cheryl R. (Spuddie) -
Helpful Score: 1
#1 Roxy Abruzzo mystery, featuring modern girl Roxy, who is (for lack of a better description) an architectural scavenger by trade, gleaning what she can from the aftermath of fires, buildings set for destruction, etc. When the owner of a burned-out mansion ends up shot to death shortly after talking with Roxy at the site, she and her not-too-bright-but-muscley assistant Nooch are both being questioned by the cops. And since Roxy's uncle is big in the local Mafia, she's always learned to be leery of cops.
Besides, she did take a big statue that is apparently worth a lot more than she originally thought, and definitely wasn't on her approved list. Soon several family members and the family lawyer are trying to find the statue of Achilles, Roxy's getting shot at, and her uncle Carmine wants her to start "running errands" for him and sends her a wad of cash as an advance. Since her daughter Sage's school tuition is overdue, it's very tempting, but that situation is then complicated when Sage (who is seventeen) thinks she may be pregnant.
I finished this book, but mostly because it was a book I received to review. The writing style was easy enough to read, but it just wasn't that interesting to me--perhaps I'm older than the target audience because I just felt rather curmudgeonly reading about the over-sexed Roxy hopping into bed with every other guy she met, and yet somehow managing to be indignant when here daughter suspected she was pregnant. And really, I don't need repeated descriptions of her nice ass, steamy truck windows, and other cheesy sex scenes. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I intensely hate gratuitous sex and so-called romance. Bah.
Roxy, who I think was supposed to come off as a tough, independent, rebellious "modern" woman, just came off as a wishy-washy boring floozy. (OMG, I used the word floozy! I must be getting old!) The other characters (the book was told alternately from several different POV) were equally inane--the crooked family lawyer trying to work an angle to retain the most money, the anorexic, Xanax-popping artsy-fartsy niece of the dead man, the jilted ex-wife (who is the one who burned down the house when she caught her husband with a barely-legal pop tart) and so on.
I couldn't get interested. I didn't really care whodunit. This is the first book I've read by this author and unless someone actually pays me to read another, it will be the last.
Besides, she did take a big statue that is apparently worth a lot more than she originally thought, and definitely wasn't on her approved list. Soon several family members and the family lawyer are trying to find the statue of Achilles, Roxy's getting shot at, and her uncle Carmine wants her to start "running errands" for him and sends her a wad of cash as an advance. Since her daughter Sage's school tuition is overdue, it's very tempting, but that situation is then complicated when Sage (who is seventeen) thinks she may be pregnant.
I finished this book, but mostly because it was a book I received to review. The writing style was easy enough to read, but it just wasn't that interesting to me--perhaps I'm older than the target audience because I just felt rather curmudgeonly reading about the over-sexed Roxy hopping into bed with every other guy she met, and yet somehow managing to be indignant when here daughter suspected she was pregnant. And really, I don't need repeated descriptions of her nice ass, steamy truck windows, and other cheesy sex scenes. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I intensely hate gratuitous sex and so-called romance. Bah.
Roxy, who I think was supposed to come off as a tough, independent, rebellious "modern" woman, just came off as a wishy-washy boring floozy. (OMG, I used the word floozy! I must be getting old!) The other characters (the book was told alternately from several different POV) were equally inane--the crooked family lawyer trying to work an angle to retain the most money, the anorexic, Xanax-popping artsy-fartsy niece of the dead man, the jilted ex-wife (who is the one who burned down the house when she caught her husband with a barely-legal pop tart) and so on.
I couldn't get interested. I didn't really care whodunit. This is the first book I've read by this author and unless someone actually pays me to read another, it will be the last.
Julie S. (saunders12) reviewed Our Lady of Immaculate Deception (Roxy Abruzzo, Bk 1) on + 31 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
After reading all of Nancy Martin's Blackbird Sisters books, I was so excited about "Our Lady." However, I was utterly disappointed!! I kept waiting for something to kick start the book and my interest and it NEVER happened.
There is more to tell in the Nora and Michael saga!!
There is more to tell in the Nora and Michael saga!!
