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Tarfumes.com - Second Season
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $11.96
Your Save: $ 3.99 ( 25% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bold Strokes Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781933110837
ISBN: 193311083X
Label: Bold Strokes Books
Manufacturer: Bold Strokes Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2007-07-30
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Studio: Bold Strokes Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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A romance set in New Orleans amidst betrayal, Hurricane Katrina, and the new beginnings hardships and heartbreak sometimes make possible.
Tully Gaston Badeaux might be successful in the courtroom, but at home her relationship with her partner, Dr. Jessica Badeaux, and their children are falling apart. In one life changing moment precipitated by a cup of spilt coffee, the world Tully had so carefully constructed comes to an end.
As Tully struggles to pick up the pieces, two women add to the complications--Dr. Kara Nicolas, the woman who stole her wife, becomes a professional adversary in the courtroom, and Libby Dexter, the young woman who moves in to assist with the kids, offers more than a helping hand.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly enjoyable
Comment: I loved the New Orleans setting and the cast of characters were both unique and yet familiar.
42 year old Tully Badeaux is in a loveless relationship to Dr.Jessica Badeaux her college sweetheart.Their relationship has drifted into days of hello and goodbye. Their two teenage children are precocious and funny yet are strangers to her. Tully has allowed her hugely successful law practice to consume most of her time and now comes the pay back.
Luckily for Tully part of her life includes a daily coffee bought from 24 year old law student and part time cashier Libby. Libby has been crushing on Tully for some time and could prove to be the ideal person for Tully and her children.
These are wonderfully interesting people. The author lets us see them as real people, faults and all. We don't just get to hear from Tully and Libby but also Jessica and Kara, and the children Bailey and Ralph.
Very entertaining glimpses of the law as Tully shows us why she is a master at her craft.
Huge story lines dealing with physcian malpractice, cheating, fighting, first love, hurricanes, murder, drugs, cover ups and living and working on the Gulf coast make this one thrill after another. At over 300 pages this is an action packed novel!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Infidelity, New Love and Hurricanes, Oh My!
Comment: This enjoyable yarn works well as a romance, but less well as an action adventure. The story begins with the lawyer protagonist finding her spouse in bed with another woman. Lawyer kicks out spouse, and has to deal with all the problems common to break-ups involving long-term couples: telling the kids, splitting the property, and interacting with the ex's new lover. This scenario provides plenty of fodder (and angst) for any one book, and the author handles most of these issues well. With a little fleshing out (some issues, especially those involving the kids, were resolved a little too easily), and the lawyer's new love interest, this focus would make quite a believable romance.
Unfortunately, the story strayed into the realm of unbelievability with the inclusion of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It felt as though Katrina was added as an afterthought - it had little impact on the protagonist's family beyond justifying a trip to the home of the lawyer's parents. While the inclusion of Katrina was unnecessary to the plot, it wasn't as disconcerting as the plotline involving Hurricane Rita. Suffice it to say that turning the middle-aged lawyer into an action hero was less than realistic. As a middle-aged lawyer myself, I know whereof I speak.
Ms. Vali obviously is a talented writer. She writes dialog well, and particularly was effective in the scenes between the lawyer and her new love. She made me care about the main characters, and I hoped the lawyer's "second season" would be better than her first. However, I felt that the author simply could not do justice to everything she tried to cram into one book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Second Season
Comment: I can't wait for the next book in this series. I am a huge fan of mafia books and the fact that the family is headed Cane(my fantasy woman). I will follow this series to the end!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fluffy bit of nothingness, good if that's what you're looking for
Comment: This book had its weaknesses, but was an enjoyable, light read overall. There wasn't much depth to mine, so I'll list its faults as I see it, those problems that keep it from getting higher marks in my mind, but keep in mind that an average book by my standards still apparently delights other readers. Figure out what reviewers have opinions that seem to mirror yours, and look at what other books they recommend.
The good: the setting was interesting, the inclusion of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were intriguing, the characters were generally likeable, even with their faults exposed. I liked how we got some of Jessica's point of view, and even the other villain Kara's. The plot twists and turns were well thought out. The characters seemed to suffer from realistic issues.
The not-so-good: events never seemed to affect the characters, and their lack of consistent internal dialogue left them seeming less than 3-dimensional.
In the beginning Tully is wrestling with some pretty weighty issues as her life isn't what she'd wanted it to be. Her kids are understandably distant, and she takes great pains to turn everything around. But in my mind everything turns around way too easily. Suddenly any member of the family is apt to break into deep and meaningful conversation with no warning, and no one thinks this is strange, or even considers how this is a contrast to how things have apparently been for years. And how old is the younger boy, Ralph? He often seems pre-teen, but then precociously takes part in emotionally mature conversation with a perspective as if he had years on even Bailey.
And while words and actions seem to indicate that characters are feeling the effects of the actions of those around them, they never think about those same things. This was especially evident in the conversations I mentioned: there was no accompanying internal dialogue. Issues would come up, everyone would participate in a brief conversation about them, then it was as if everyone shrugged their shoulders and moved on. Perhaps they're just very laid-back people (though they weren't established as such), but forgoing the chance to explore the consequences of everyone's actions was dramatic opportunity lost in my opinion. Jessica is cheating? Mom got beat up? We're going on a trip to Mexico? Lane is considerably younger than Mom? Hurricanes have ravaged our city? I'm dating a girl? Eh. It'll all be ok...and no one ever thinks about them again. In fact, the only reason Kara and Jessica remained in their thoughts at all was because of the tie-in with a case Tully took (and though her clients seemed like complete strangers at the outset, apparently she grew up very near them in a small town, so it stretches the bounds of my credibility a bit to think that she'd never even heard of them before, or that that wasn't a consideration when she was taking their case). I'll admit that there's an angst line that I don't like to cross when reading my escapist fiction, but this book stayed too far away from that line.
Ultimately everything was too pat, leaving this book as a sweet sort of fluff, like cotton candy, but with nothing to stick to the ribs. With some editing (beyond mechanics of grammar, continuity, etc.) and re-working it could have had a lot more impact, so perhaps it's the unrealized potential that bugs me the most. I haven't read any other Ali Vali works, so I can't say if this is typical. But if all you want is cotton candy, and you find me entirely too critical, I expect you'll really enjoy this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another great read from Ms. Vali
Comment: I have purchased all of Ali's books and each one is just as great as the last one - this one I enjoyed because once again the main character is strong, independent but deep down a warm gentle person. You can just tell how much Ms. Vali loves the south and she makes you just want to visit New Orleans any chance you have. Ms. Vali brings depth to not only her characters but also their surroundings....I look forward to more of Ms. Vali's publications.
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