Search - Cool Shade

Good read. Real people with hangups type characters.

A fast-moving contemporary romance about a girl fired from her job as a late-night deejay for playing a "song with words," living on her last dollar and driving a car with a wired-on muffler. She's looking for clues regarding her older sister's recent disappearance. She meets up with a reclusive former rock musician who's harboring a secret about a famous rock star who was shot on stage. It's a witty book with a nice contemporary voice.

This book won the Rita Award. Maddie Smith has never been one to hang around any place too long. After losing her job as a late-night disc jockey, she has little reason to stay in Tucson. When she receives a message that her estranged sister has disappeared, she figures she might as well go to Nebraska and see what's up with her unreliable sibling. There she learns that her sister is linked to the mysterious Eddie Berlin, a recluse and a very sexy guy. Maddie takes a personal interest in Eddie as she searches for clues about the disappearance of her sister.
Meanwhile, Eddie is shouldering problems of his own. The former manager of a pop star killed by a crazed fan, Eddie feels responsible for the singer's death, and as a result, he hasn't wandered off his own property in more than four years. Still, he is attracted to Maddie, experiencing feelings he thought he would never know again. A stolen tape of a recording made by the late rock star and other clues bind the couple together. It soon becomes clear that these two deserve each other, and when they finally feel comfortable with the fit, they find they are greater as a pair than they could ever have been as individuals.

The encounters between Maddie and Eddie are anything but typical. Both are insecure, yet somehow they manage to muddle through. Author Theresa Weir has created them to be very human, characters the readers feel connected to as they witness their lives unfold.

Pretty good contemporary romance. I liked it a lot, worth the time and the credit. 3.5 stars.

I’m a nearly 100% historical romance reader and was having a difficult time finding a contemporary author I liked – until Theresa Weir, that is. I read and loved her novel Amazon Lily. I knew Cool Shade had gotten outstanding reviews and won a RITA award, but the book summary didn’t appeal to me and I almost passed on the book. However, then I read All About Romance’s Desert Isle Keeper review of Cool Shade, giving it an A rating coupled with a “hot” sensuality rating, and since the DIK reviews are nearly always spot on, I decided to give the book a try.

Maddy is fired from her night-time DJ job after intentionally violating the radio station’s format by playing “a song with words.” She’s flat broke and behind on her rent even before she’s fired. On the day she’s fired she arrives home to find a letter from her estranged sister Enid’s land lady in Nebraska, who indicates that Enid has been missing for a month. With nothing to lose and nothing keeping her in Arizona, Maddy packs up her few worldly possessions and her cat and drives from Arizona to Nebraska, to see if she can discover what happened to Enid. Several mechanical breakdowns later, she arrives in Nebraska and finds out her sister was working there as a small-town prostitute. After reviewing Enid’s appointment book, she discovers that one of her clients was a local recluse named Eddie Berlin. Maddy decides to head out to Eddie’s farmhouse to see what she can find out, but is frustrated when Eddie throws her off the property when she mentions Enid’s name. Eddie is a very strange character, a recluse and former manager of singer Rick Beck, who was killed onstage approx. 4 years ago. Eddie has a mysterious relationship to Rick Beck and some people actually think Eddie may have had some involvement in Rick’s death. Suspicious of Eddie’s possible involvement with Enid's disappearance, Maddy goes to the police, who say Eddie is “harmless” and refuse to investigate him due to lack of evidence. Maddy then takes matters into her own hands by breaking into Eddie’s farmhouse while he’s not home. That’s when the fireworks start. You can imagine all the possible scenarios and I don’t want to give much more away at this point, since I don’t want to create spoilers.

Suffice it to say, that this was one of the best romances I’ve EVER read. To say I was impressed is vastly understating the case. I’d give the book an A++ rating. This is the caliber of book Laura Kinsale or Judith Ivory would be writing if they wrote contemporaries. Combine deeply flawed, but very appealing, very human characters, with excellent character development, a fast-moving plot and a fascinating mystery you will NEVER solve on your own, and there you have it. Weir reveals her characters a little at a time and so the mystery unfolds very gradually. There are humorous moments and the characters are very real and flawed. The ending is so poignant that I probably used up a box of Kleenex on it. The love scenes are unusual and very, very hot, leaving just enough to the imagination. The mystery is so good, I’m convinced Weir could be a straight mystery writer in her own rite.

Beg, borrow or steal this book, but whatever you do read it! It’s a keeper for me so nobody’s getting my copy. At this writing, my hubby is about 1/3 of a way through the book and he loves it too, but he’s a much slower reader than I am.

Different from many of the romance books. Just a bit of a mystery. Fun read!