I've been putting off reading this book for a while. For some reason I thought it was strictly romance, and was pleased that it turned out to be that and more.

The "thriller" aspect though of both stories leave a lot to be desired. Mostly smoke with little substance ( )

Yuck. Catherine Coulter's The Beginning is a two-in-one omnibus, including The Cove and The Maze. My mom lent this book to me after she discovered I liked to read thrillers. It seems as if my aunt has introduced mysteries to my mom (who had really only read romances up til now), and mom had read this recently. I typically read mysteries as escape literature, but I expect them to be fairly well-written and have an intricate plot that I can get lost in for a few hours.

The Cove, the only one of of the books from The Beginning that I will read, was not well-written, nor did it have an intricate plot. It was a silly story about Sally Brainerd, who escapes a sanitarium, is somehow involved or sees her abusive father killed (her memory is a bit hazy from all the drugs they gave her in the sanitarium), then escapes to her aunt Amabel in a mysterious west cost town, The Cove. FBI agent James Quinlan follows Sally to The Cove, posing as a private investigator looking into the mysterious disappearance of a couple who visited the town a few years before. By the end of the book, we learn what happened to Sally's father and what happened to the missing couple. Both resolutions are quite far-fetched, especially the one involving The Cove and it's older residents.

Coulter is not a particularly good writer. The dialog (which makes up most of the book) is stilted, repetitive and not life-like at all. The plots could have been interesting, but in Coulter's hands seemed almost farce-like rather than mysterious in any way. And she continued to use the same words to describe the same characters throughout the book. Sally's husband, Scott, is always a "worm." Dr. Beadermeyer is a "monster." And at least two, and maybe three, different characters use the word "damnation." Who the heck uses that word anymore, let alone multiple characters in the same book? All I know is - no more Catherine Coulter for me. ( )

Read The Cove, the first of two novels here. She is MUCH too wordy. Very unrealistic dialog. ( )