Grade: B+

If you like that Southern, almost gothic, almost Faulknerish (but, like, not at all literary) melodrama, then look no further! This book’s for you, bub. This one never fails to thrill me, disgust me, and entrance me, all at the same time. There are some scenes here that make my skin crawl, but there’s some pretty hot stuff, too. We’ve got incest, a murder mystery, more incest, familial backstabbing, more incest, intrigue, and if this were only set in Hollywood, we’d have a Jackie Collins novel. This here is the love story of Webb Tallant and Roanna Davenport, second cousins, but that’s not really a big deal because we see this stuff on historical romance novels all the time. In fact, it’s legal in most states to marry your second cousin. No, it’s not the cousin love that squicks me out in this book—okay, maybe a little—but the father-daughter love. I’m not joking. I mean, it’s not like it was pictured in a favorable light or anything, but it’s still really vomit-inducing and it kind of makes you want to gouge out your own eyes and soak your brain in bleach. I’m just sayin’. If that doesn’t gross you out and you’re interested in reading a scandalous, scintillating novel, then go get this book now. But first, let’s break this sucker down.

Our “heroine”—and I hesitate to call her that because she’s really one of the worst spineless, utterly useless pieces of crap I’ve ever read about—is Roanna Davenport, a skinny little thing who is a recovering anorexic. Her parents died in a car accident when she was a little girl—and no, unlike a Jayne Ann Krentz novel, she wasn’t forced to find a job to feed herself and a younger sibling—so she was sent to live with her extremely wealthy grandmother, Lucinda. Also recently orphaned is her cousin Jesse, whose mother, Lucinda’s favorite daughter, also perished in the car accident that killed Roanna’s parents, and is also taken in by Lucinda. Roanna moves into a big gothic mansion that also houses a few of Lucinda’s other relatives, namely, Lucinda’s sister Gloria and Gloria’s husband Harlan, as well as Webb Tallant, Lucinda’s favorite brother’s son’s son. I think.

Anyway, from the moment Roanna sees Webb when she was seven years old, she becomes madly, utterly in love with him, but Webb is already in love with Jesse, the beautiful cousin who is a favorite of Lucinda. In fact, Lucinda loves Webb and Jesse so much (it’s already assumed that the two will get married when they are older and Webb will take the reins of the family business and the family) that there really is no more room in her heart for Roanna. Because of this, Roanna becomes a bit of an attention-whore, always saying outrageous things and making trouble for herself because no one pays attention to her, anyway. Everyone in the household, with the exception of Webb, barely tolerates her, so in a way, you can’t help but feel sorry for her. When Webb marries Jesse and becomes the man of the house, Roanna feels more alone and does even more outrageous things to get attention from Webb. One night, while Webb is coaxing her to eat a dinner roll (Roanna won’t eat unless she absolutely has to), Roanna kisses him without really thinking about it, and they get caught by Jesse. Jesse, on the other hand, goes bat-shit crazy, calling Roanna all sorts of ugly names, which prompts a very large fight between Jesse and Webb. Webb storms out of the mansion and in the morning, Roanna finds Jesse dead in a pool of blood. The cops rule out Webb and Roanna and declare the case unsolved. Immediately after the funeral, Webb leaves town and Roanna is alone again. Naturally.

Our hero, Webb Tallant, on the other hand, is truly a hero in the sense that Roanna views him as her knight in shining armor. In fact, Webb is so strong a character that he literally overshadows Roanna in every sense of the word. When he was a little boy, he was brought up to believe that one day, he is going to take over the Davenport business and become the man of the house. Webb, though not even a Davenport, is Lucinda’s heir apparent and with that package, he also gets Jesse, Lucinda’s favorite and the object of Webb’s obsession. Though he knows that Roanna should really be the true heir, since her father was Lucinda’s only son, Webb will take whatever Lucinda is offering, no matter who gets hurt in the process, because he believes it is his destiny. Still, he likes to keep an eye on Roanna, making sure she eats properly, and protecting her from Jesse’s cruelty. Webb is aware of Roanna’s hero worship, but he doesn’t mind it at all. In fact, he’s gotten very used to it and has come to expect it from her, which is why when Roanna retreats into herself after Jesse is murdered, Webb is thoroughly hurt by what he sees as betrayal and leaves town immediately after his name was cleared. Sure, the entire town sees this as a practical admission of guilt, but Webb couldn’t give a shit. He no longer wants anything to do with the Davenport wealth or the Davenport family. Ten years later, when Roanna shows up in the bar where he usually hangs out, telling him that Lucinda is very sick and that the family business is suffering, so the family needs him to come back, Webb agrees on one condition: Roanna must sleep with him. They do the nasty—and I mean the nasty—and Webb goes back.

A large portion of this novel involves Lucinda’s very large family and the development of Webb and Roanna’s relationship takes a backseat to it. There’s Gloria, who is really there just to say things like, “How can you let a murderer back into our house? He will murder us in our beds!” and “What will other people say? You will regret letting Webb back into our lives, Lucinda, mark my words!” Her husband Harlan is there, but he’s pretty useless. Gloria and Harlan’s kids also move in, along with their kids, the most notable of which is Corliss. Corliss is a crazy ass bitch in the vein of Jesse and enjoys torturing Roanna. Roanna doesn’t get a lot of sleep because she sleep-walks, so whenever Corliss catches Roanna taking a rare nap, she will make sure to make a lot of noise like slamming a door or shouting from the top of her lungs, to wake Roanna up. Naturally, this causes Webb and Corliss to fight and fight often, since Webb has once again taken up his post as Roanna’s protector. Corliss also hooks up with Jesse’s dad (with whom Jesse was having an affair) and it’s a pretty nasty deal. I mean, like, skin-crawling gross because Corliss is a druggie and Jesse’s dad gives her drugs after she does some pretty nasty shit with him.

I know this book sounds pretty awful, but it’s just some damned salacious and scandalous that it’s like watching some wretched Mexican soap opera. The only downer here is Roanna. I mean, she truly is a complete and utter waste of space. She’s not really a character, but just an object of Webb’s obsession. She doesn’t fight for herself, lets people walk all over her, and kind of just drifts from scene to scene like a pathetic little waif whose head you just want to kick over and over again because she’s so damned sad that it’s disgusting. Webb, on the other hand, is a character that is more developed, but there really isn’t anything to him except lust, anger, and outrage. Nevertheless, he is a stronger character than Roanna, so it would have served the book better if it had a stronger heroine. I would have preferred reading about Jesse as the female protagonist and how she and Webb fight, throw things at each other, fall in love, and work things out, kind of like a trashy version of The Taming of the Shrew.

Roanna is a cipher, a non-entity, almost like a ghost. As a character, she’s also pretty static. She starts out as a rambunctious child, but then she grows up to become this spineless, useless jellyfish, and stops there. She doesn’t evolve into anything else. She doesn’t grow a spine. She doesn’t tell the family to fuck off. She’s just this pathetic little creature who’s nothing more than a hole for Webb to stick his pizzle into, but you kind of feel sorry for her at the same time because she’s just a product of her environment. I mean, with the exception of Webb who pretty much deserts her early in the novel, no one gives a shit about her. It’s just really fucking sad, man.

And I wish that Roanna would have thrown a fucking fit where she tears everyone new assholes and throws them out of her house (Webb tells Lucinda to change her will so that Roanna is the sole heir). It would have been okay even if she acted like a total spineless piece of crap for most of the novel, but then snapped, like, near the end, then went berserker on everyone’s asses. That would have been awesome. She does have ONE scene, though, where she pretty much tells everyone to fuck off is they’re going to continue calling Webb a murderer behind his back, but it wasn’t enough. To match the tone of the story, I wanted her to get all buck-wild and throw an over-the-top, melodramatic hissyfit. There just wasn’t a pay-off, you know?

Anyway, this book is a real guilty pleasure for me. From time to time, I would read it again and again because it’s just so damned bitchy and scandalous and kind of gross, but in a scintillating way. I don’t really care about Webb (who is really kind of hot) and Roanna’s relationship, but the family… oh, boy, they’re something else. They’re just so fun and trashy, like straight out of Jackie Collins’ nightmare. And you know what? I really didn’t expect the identity of the killer to turn out who it was. I mean, I was blown away by it. This isn’t saying much, of course, because when I read After the Night, I was blown away by the killer, too, and that one was glaringly obvious, as someone pointed out to me. This one is a fun read, it’s not a GREAT read, but it’s always pretty damned fun, like a bad horror movie.