Book Review: Night Whispers

Title: Night Whispers

Author: Judith McNaught

Author's web site: http://www.judithmcnaught.com/

Date: 1998

Publisher: Pocket Books

ISBN: 0-671-0085-3

Length: 303 pages

Quote: “I’m Special Agent Paul Richardson, FBI…We’re interested in your father.”

Despite its opening like an adventure story, with Agent Richardson stalking police officer Sloan Reynolds to make sure Sloan is the right sort of person to help investigate her long-estranged wealthy father, Night Whispers is pure fantasy.

Sloan is a tough, independent, mother-identified little proletarian who thinks she wants nothing to do with her father, his money, or even her long-lost baby sister, and doesn’t even care much about men, not even the ones who are in love with her; she has her job and her mother to think about. Needless to say, this will change when she spends some time with her father, her terrible great-grandmother, her baby sister, and their super-rich friends.

Since the only real suspense in this story is which sister will fall in love with Paul and which with the rich boy who’s become Sloan’s sister’s buddy, I won’t spoil that. Otherwise, it’s just the classic Cinderella story. Daddy will be much nicer than Sloan has ever let herself remember, she’ll love having a baby sister, she’ll have just enough time to start to like her bossy great-grandmother before the old lady dies, and by the end of the story she’ll be happily married with a child. And with all the privileges Daddy ought to have given her all along, too.

There’s more than one explicit “romantic” sex scene in this book. There’s at least one tastefully airbrushed murder, although Sloan’s life is never in danger. There’s little bad language but, if you don’t enjoy the kind of “romance” novels that tell you in exactly which manner and sequence the couple touch, then take the chance of making a baby, then quarrel, then reconcile, and only then bother to get married, don’t read Night Whispers, because that’s what Sloan and her man do.

Frankly I’m not sure why they bother, at least with the details of the sex scene. All these couples touch exactly the same body parts in exactly the same manner and sequence. The challenge of writing this kind of novel really is finding a way to write that scene that will pass Copyscape.

If you like just a little more adventure and a tiny, tiny bit more suspense than Silhouette Desire romances supply, you’ll like Night Whispers. I wouldn’t read it twice but I made it all the way through this book once.

Until I go online to post these reviews, I seldom know which authors are still alive and active in cyberspace. Judith McNaught apparently is, so Night Whispers is a Fair Trade Book. Buy it here, $5 per book, $5 per package, and $1 per online payment to either address at the bottom of the screen, and we'll send $1 to McNaught or the charity of her choice. If you add one of her newer books to the package (the newest ones should be added as new books) we'll send 10% of the total of that price per book, plus the $5 for the package, to McNaught or her charity as well, even though you pay only the one shipping charge; thus Night Whispers and Whitney My Love together would cost you $15, and the charity would get $2. If you'll accept cheaper paperback editions, you could probably fit more than two books into the package.