A few months ago, I read Carol Goodman's LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES and immediately ordered THE GHOST ORCHID. A third of the way through I was certain I was entering a reader/writer lover affair. The descriptive passages are sublime, the language nuances and the sense of place exquisite. And in those first two books there was even a nice little mystery.
I bought and read ARCADIA FALLS and have just finished THE NIGHT VILLA. The romance is over. Goodman is stuck in character rut. Her protagonist in three of the four books is an academic, the secondaries are her students, and the hunky nod to romance hero is a walk-on part. The heroine's story arc isn't compelling enough for my taste. Also, Goodman tiptoes really close to the "see all the research I did for this book?" syndrome.
That said, I still love her writing style and when she describes a stand of birches I can close my eyes and see them, hear them sense them. Her historical research—especially in THE NIGHT VILLA—is fascinating enough that I went and dragged out all my photographs of Herculaneum.
Would I suggest her books? You betcha. Because while the love affair is over, I think we're still "good friends."
