Book Review: Love Me To Death, by Allison Brennan

Love Me to Death has an intricate, thrilling plot but gets a bit bogged down in descriptions and repetition.

Lucy Kincaid feels like someone is watching her. She’s nervous and unsettled, and usually her feelings are fairly accurate. Six years ago, Lucy was abducted and raped and ended up killing one of her abductors. So there’s definitely a reason she would be attuned to her surroundings. When she finds out another of her abductors has been murdered, and she didn’t even know he was out of prison, things begin to fall apart for her.

Lucy works for a private agency that helps catch internet predators who have been convicted but are out on parole. She finds this work very satisfying, as she lures these perpetrators to meet her, and instead, they are met by police officers and sent back to prison for breaking their parole. Then she discovers that one of these men, instead of being incarcerated again, was murdered.

She begins working with Sean, her brother’s partner who is a private investigator. Soon there is an undeniable attraction between these two, and that makes Sean all the more determined to make sure Lucy is safe, and these mysteries are solved. He will have to pull out all the stops before this story ends.

The plot is interesting and intriguing. There are many twists and turns, and all the while this romance is building, which also adds appeal to the story. Lucy’s entire family (four brothers and a sister-in-law) are in some way involved with the law, and most of them are involved in this case. I thought it was a bit strange that her brother, knowing that Lucy is involved in some very dangerous things, doesn’t come back from his trip to help. He doesn’t even help Sean from long-distance, like other members of their PI firm. Why write in an extraneous character?

I had a real problem with the psycho-babble in this novel. Brennan tells Lucy’s back story and about how strong she is now, and about what was going on inside her head many times throughout the book. As a matter of fact, I got tired of hearing about what was going on in EVERYONE’s head. There would be a section of dialog or action, and then the author goes off and tells you about why every said what they did, and what’s going on in their head. Seems like a good story line and dialog should give me that (show me, don’t tell me!) It made a very exciting and intricate plot get bogged down at times.

Part of the problem may have been the narrator of this audio book. I really just want someone to read the book to me – not in a monotone, but I don’t need all the drama in her voice either.  I found her style very irritating, and then when she would read about all the psychology and motivations, it made those parts even worse.

So—the plot is very interesting, tense, and exciting. I cared about the characters, I genuinely wanted  everything to work out for them, especially Sean and Lucy. I was just annoyed with all the explanations, many of which were very repetitive, and at times ruined the momentum of the story. I would recommend that you read the book, not listen to the audio. That way you can skim or skip all the extra descriptions if you want.

Published by Ballentine, 2010 (Audio by Books on Tape)
Audiobook obtained from the library
496 pages

Rating: 2.5/5

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