The book written by Robb and Roberts is... bad, imo. It's a gimmicky way to make money. It's really just two novels written with overlapping characters and some plot points that tie them together. The first novel is written in Roberts's style, but not at her best, and the second one is in Robb's style, and, though better than the first one, I think, still not her best work in that style.

I agree with Betsy that the most recent Robb was quite good -- one of the best of the series. The three (give or take) previous to it did have kind of that churned out feel with lots of lingering over the beauty of Rourke-Sue, but she seemed to get her stride back with this one.

There were three or 4 of the last ones - ( maybe less) that made me go eh... but divided in death -- back to her better ones.

In the robert/robb one I actually like the Roberts story betterand about 90% of the time I am not real interested in Roberts books. I read them , but they are forgetable. Roberts wrote one in a vineyard and I felt that it was wasted. " ahh - exotic location #302 - here's a fact , now let's get on with the kissing. "

I used to like Roberts a lot, and then they started all being the same story, so I stopped reading them. However, one of the most recent Roberts, Chesapeake something (I am terrible at titles), was recced in here, and I read it and enjoyed it.

I think Handmaid's Tale is her worst effort.

Wow. I definitely need to get around to reading her other stuff, then, because I loved Handmaid's Tale.

I just finished Lost in a Good Book. I'm not sure how well I liked it. I loved The Eyre Affair. It was a fun read. But in The Eyre Affair, he pretty clearly set up rules about what the fictional characters can and cannot do, and then it seemed like he had characters break almost all of them in Lost in a Good Book. I can kind of see some loopholes as to how it might be OK, but I'm not really sure that all of them work. The universe in this book really seemed to be operating by a different set of rules than the universe in the first book, and I think I liked the way it worked in the first one better.

I 'm with you - the first one was so much tighter. The second one had too much going on - so I never even knew if there were rules. The third one was given to me as an xmas present, so I will read ( someday ) and report.

I like The Handmaid's Tale too. I also think it's a lot less far-fetched now than it may have seemed a few years ago.

So, no one has the dish on Fleming for me?

I like The Handmaid's Tale too. I also think it's a lot less far-fetched now than it may have seemed a few years ago.

Yes and yes. There's an interview with Atwood somewhere where she talks about she had to mentally stretch to set that kind of society in (the remains of) the U.S. (since she was writing it a couple decades ago), and how frightening it is to her that she may have been more accurate than she knew. Chilling stuff.

Jesse, I haven't read Live and Let Die, but I've read others, and Fleming is about as crude as you can pretty well imagine. He's sexually crude too, which always sort of flew in the face of the suave-good-guy image people take away from the movies. Sort of like Mickey Spillane, only less self-consciously hard-boiled. Anyway, less self-aware.

Also, there will be Bond-torture before the novel ends. Guaranteed.