Daredevil
Grade : D+

Casey Boone and Dare King seemed like nice people. The more I read of Daredevil, the more I wondered how they got stuck in a story like this.

Dare has known Casey since the day she was born. Their parents were close friends, and he became her babysitter, her big brother, her best friend and, eventually, her lover. Three years ago, she broke off their engagement because her father died on the day of their wedding and, for some unexplained reason, Casey blamed Dare for his death. Casey has since moved on with her life, becoming a physical therapist and dating a fellow doctor. Dare has gone back to fighting oil well fires. After an accident on the job leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, he is reunited with Casey and they haltingly pick up where they left off.

The love between Casey and Dare was the high point in a story riddled with inconsistencies and implausibilities. For starters, the author is obviously from the "everything but the kitchen sink" school of writing. When Casey finally explains to Dare why she couldn't go through with their wedding, she gives him a variety of reasons - she's afraid of inheriting a condition that paralyzed her mother, she's frightened of losing the people she loves, she felt pressured into marriage too fast. If she had only one reason to stop the marriage, she would have come across as a strong, but unsure character, as she does for the rest of the novel. Instead, she looks whiny and confused, as if she had to brainstorm for ideas not to marry Dare.

There were also several plot inconsistencies. For example, Dare worries that he doesn't have a birthday present for Casey. But, an hour later, he's pulling out a fully-wrapped box for her to open. The author also doesn't explain how he managed to keep in touch with Casey for three years if she was refusing to speak to him. At one point, Casey will be regretting that she hasn't had contact with Dare for years. Moments later, she'll be reminiscing over a gift he gave her during that time.

I'm also no expert on disabilities or physical therapy, but for a man who had been confined to a wheelchair for only a few weeks, Dare seemed to be almost too competent. On his first day home from the hospital, he was able to dress himself, get into his wheelchair and wheel himself to breakfast with no help. He even offered to wash the dishes! The next day, he saddled and rode a horse. I realize that many people with disabilities are able to perform these tasks, and the author does explain that Casey and Dare are living in a home that is designed to be wheelchair-accessible, but when Dare baked a cake or went upstairs, I would have appreciated more description. Having to stop reading in order to imagine how he could do these things was jarring and took me out of the narrative.

Secondary characters are also, for the most part, ignored, which is often the case in the series romance, and one wonders why the author bothered to include them at all. Dare's family made such a brief appearance that I forgot about them entirely until they reappeared at the end of the book. And Casey's boyfriend is such a footnote that he is never mentioned again after she refuses his hasty proposal.

Only Dare and Casey boosted this story from a failing grade. In sharp contrast to the secondary characters, they were realistic and multi-faceted. Plus, it was easy to believe in their love. There's a strong sense of shared experiences between them. When Dare tells Casey that she's his buddy as well as his lover, the author manages to make it sound caring rather than corny. There's a strong sense that they're meant to be together.

If the author had paid as much attention to the plot as she paid to the relationship between Casey and Dare, this book would have been terrific. Instead, poor story-telling rendered it nearly unreadable and frustrating - these wonderful people deserved better.

Reviewed by Other
Grade : D+
Book Type: Series Romance

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : May 23, 1999

Publication Date: 1994/11

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Other

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x