"Have You Seen Her?" by Karen Rose

Special Agent Steven Thatcher is on the case of a serial killer who is abducting and murdering cheerleaders across the state. Making things difficult is his home life - youngest son Nicky is still traumatised after being kidnapped (which happened in Rose's previous "Don't Tell"), and oldest son Brad is misbehaving, and his grades are dropping.

Jenna Marshall is Brad's teacher and concerned about his failing grades. She organises to speak to Steven. Of course, the attraction is immediate. Complicating things for Jenna, however, is the fact that she has failed student Rudy Lutz and gotten him kicked off the baseball team, angering his father and friends, and she is now the subject of a campaign of terror in an effort to make her back down and let Rudy back on the team.

Although the book cover states that "finding the (killer) is Steven's over-riding objective", Steven spends most of his time acting like a complete moron in his romantic pursuit of Jenna, who may wind up being the next victim of the serial killer.

A better title for this pile of shit would be "Have You Seen The Plot?" Because there is none to be found here, folks. I hated this book. I really, truly hated it. To call this "romantic suspense" is a stretch, because suspense is at a complete minimum. The complete and total focus here is the romance between Steven and Jenna. And the multitude of issues that prevent them from getting together.

The cause of most of these issues is Steven. He is a complete imbecile. If you want to read a romance about an emotionally-stunted, tantrum-throwing manchild, you've come to the right place. If you want to read a romantic suspense thriller, you're better off throwing this piece of junk into the fire and picking up one of Rose's other novels. While all her novels contain a somewhat exasperating degree of emotional and romantic angst, they generally all contain complex, interesting plots.

Not this one. The serial killer murdering cheerleaders is very much in the background. More focus is actually given to the terror campaign mounted against Jenna by Rudy and his friends. The rest of the book consists of Steven being a complete juvenile prick towards Jenna and Jenna constantly forgiving him because she just can't resist him. I have detested more than a few book characters in my time, but Steven Thatcher earned a new level of contempt from me. What an appalling, disgusting, pathetic character. I quickly grew sick of his childish antics and melodramatic behaviour. Grrrr. I spent most of the book wanting to throw the book across the room because I hated Steven Thatcher so much.

"Have You Seen Her?" is worthless. It's shit. There's no other way to describe it. It's Rose's worst novel, and easily tops my list of worst books I've ever read. I'm angry that an author can dribble 500 pages of shit like this. Good thing I've read and enjoyed so many other novels by Rose, because if this was the only book of hers to go on, I'd never, ever read her again.

Avoid like the plague.