Spellbound by Nora Roberts (Review)

Hi Tim, I don’t really see the viewpoint changing in the paragraph you mentioned. It is still his viewpoint. He is trying to figure out how deeply he has effected her. His answer comes in the next paragraph, where you get her perspective.
I don’t know. I think I’m already in way over my head!

You can’t be in over your head. Much of this is hocus pocus, anyway; it’s subjective. As long as you say how the piece truly affected you, you’re on solid ground.

But he couldn’t know just how deeply that disappointment, that frustration cut into her heart.

So you’re saying this is what he’s thinking, that he’s observing a disappointment in her eyes, but he doesn’t know how deeply that disappointment affects her. Yes, that’s possible.

I probably myself would have taken it this way were it not for the next sentence: “He’s here, she told herself. He’s come.” This is clearly inside her head. So when did the point of view switch, and why?

When a writer switches point of view, it’s like changing scenes in a movie. He has to give me some reason to expect the scene to change and then make a clean transition. Maybe someone walks out of the frame through a door, then suddenly we’re looking at the next room, from the other side of the door. That’s a scene change, and the person walking out of the frame anticipated the change. In prose, the transition can be as simple as putting a section break. We end one scene and we start the next, now from a different perspective. But when I’m reading along and I’m in one character’s head and then suddenly I’m in another character’s head, I get confused. So I don’t know where the scene change occured, and I need to re-read that part of the prose a few times just to figure out what I missed, and that disrupts the story for me.

-TimK

Perhaps if she had begun the next paragraph with “It is, yes” the viewpoint change would of been more obvious. But, that’s not always how the thought process works.
I don’t see it as a scene change. The scene doesn’t change until the conversation is over.
I look at it as a thought conversation.
As readers we are able to hear the words and thoughts simultaneously back and forth.

Maybe it would’ve helped. I don’t know. You’re right that it’s not really a scene change. But it is a new shot, a change of focus. And that’s why I was thrown by it, because I saw nothing that anticipated the change. I guess I just get confused by thought conversations, being able to hear inside multiple heads at once.

Cheers,
-TimK

I am sorry about the confusion some are having with ANY book by Nora Roberts. She can’t write a bad book. Maybe you should go back to Dr. Seuss!

Heidi, Nora is a lucky writer to have fans like you. No joke. I might also say the same thing about Robert Heinlein, that he never wrote a bad book. (Even though I know that any writer can write a bad book.) What I’ve found since I wrote this review is that Nora just isn’t my cup of tea. But then again, I’m picky.

Cheers.
-TimK

It’s weird. Nora Roberts has been one of my favorite authors for quite some time, and I’ve enjoyed nearly all of her contemporary romances. It wasn’t until I took a writing class that discussed the concept of Point of View that I realized just how much “head-hopping” she does in her novels.

That doesn’t make them any less enjoyable for me – I still like her stories and her tone. It just made me wonder if her earlier novels (the ones that were first published) were written in the same manner, or if the “head-hopping” has developed as she has become more successful, in the same way that Stephen King’s self-editing has gone by the wayside as he has become more famous. After all, what editor is going to tell Nora Roberts “You really shouldn’t do that”?

Um, with all due respect TimK, I’m a little puzzled as to how you read “Spellbound” and picked out a viewpoint switch as the most pressing matter at hand?

Don’t get me wrong, I found the jump between the characters’ asinine thoughts irksome too–not because I had trouble following who was thinking what, but more because their thoughts sounded like they were merely products of a bad romance novel. Oh wait, they were products of a bad romance novel.

Maybe I’m being too critical. Not all of the writing was bad. I was happily surprised when I came across this line:

“Mockingbirds sang as he clambered over stone walls into fields where cows grazed on grass as green as emeralds.” (p.63)

Such dazzling poetry is rare to be seen. Clever Nora even managed to fit in an ounce of alliteration! Hurrah!

Essentially, this story reminds us of all the reasons why cliches are universally scorned. I really do commend “Spellbound” for its ability to not only track down all the unforgivably bad lines from all the unforgivably bad movies, books, and Hallmark cards, but to then compress them into an 80 page novella. I don’t think it polite for me to go into detail about exactly how many ways this book butchers the art of storytelling, and indeed, the English language itself, but I will ask this … aren’t ROMANCE books supposed to be ROMANTIC? Because the way I look at it, I spend so much reading time laughing at lines like “she mated with him, their rhythm ancient and sure” (p. 40), that instead of feeling aroused, I feel molested.

Don’t be victims of badly written erotic fiction any longer! Come into the light. (I am aware the latter line has probably already been celebrated in some Nora Roberts book somewhere as a conveniently useful pun).

Oh, and HeidiW, I sincerely hope you go back to Dr. Seuss and take a closer look. I think after engaging even with Dr. Seuss, you will start to doubt your declaration that Nora Roberts could never write a bad book. You might even begin to wonder whether she could ever write a good book? Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that “The Cat In The Hat” is a more gratifying image than Spellbound’s leading lady watching her hero “stroke the cat into ecstasy” then wishing she could make “soft, secret sounds in the night” with him (p.16).

Happy reading, folks.

Ah yes, I agree with you on that point, TimK. Looking at the book seriously, I also found that the characters were painfully flat. I think what really bothered me about this little book was that it tried to do too much in too little space … I mean, come on — it tries to mix Romeo-and-Juliet romance with epic fantasy in 80 pages and that just CANNOT work. Here is a vague layout of what happens:

-Some shallow American photographer who’s always been prone to having an “overdeveloped” imagination has a few dreams about some hot red-haired chick and decides he wants to go to Ireland for some reason.

-He goes to Ireland and all of a sudden ends up in some weird fantasy land that is never properly explained where he gets snogged spontaneously by same hot red-head from dreams.

-Decides to stay in hot red-head’s house even though he thinks she is insane because she lives alone with her cat, wears cloaks, practices witchcraft and claims that he is her lover from another life.

-Continues to stay at hot red-head’s house even though she keeps getting weirder and weirder then only decides to sex her when evil wizard Alisdair appears and dream-rapes hot red-head.

-Shallow photographer and hot red-head hang out for a few pages. They fight about something unimportant.

-Evil wizard Alisdair tries to defeat hot red-head and make her his sex-slave.

-Hot red-head prepares to kill herself cos she thinks shallow photographer doesn’t love her.

-Shallow photographer runs off into the forest for some reason. Bumps into hot red-head’s dead mum and suddenly realizes he is in love with hot red-head.

-A horse and a sword appear from somewhere and suddenly shallow photographer is buff knight who rushes off to save hot red-head.

-Evil wizard Alisdair (another character whose motives and back-story is never explained) is defeated and hot red-head and shallow photographer have a happy sexually-promising ending in the Castle Of Secrets.

You would think I wouldn’t care this much about a book I hate, but I happen to be writing an essay on it for a university subject called Popular/Genre Fiction. The topic is: “The romance is typically regarded as occupying the lowest rung on the hierarchy of genres. With close reference to Spellbound, discuss why this might be so.”

Good times. And strike two for Nora, indeed TimK. Are you a Twilight fan?

I don’t think Spellbound was really the right choice for your first Nora Roberts book. It’s not one I’ve enjoyed – and I’ve read about 98% of her books. She’s written some fantastic books – and a few not so fantastic. I guess no one is perfect all the time.
But their are some very well written Nora Roberts books – give one of her others a go.