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Book reviews for "Brown,_Marel" sorted by average review score:

Sudden Death
Published in Mass Market Paperback by Bantam Books (1984)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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A Thinly-Veiled & Dull Bio of Brown's Life With Navratilova
Even though this book was terrible, it starred lesbians, and that's got to count for something. Exactly 2 stars.

Tennis Soap Opera
A more-than-likely realistic look at the female pro-tennis circuit from Martina's erstwhile lover, Rita Mae Brown. Includes an erotic lesbian encounter in a motel room between female tennis star, the dominant Carmen Semana, and her latest conquest, the submissive Bonnie Bishop.

Sweet revenge served with a spin
This book, clearly about the author's time as Martina Navratilova's tennis tour spouse, manages to relive the time withoutjilted love bitterness (or even mentioning the tennis star). Very good description of the tennis circuit. Contains one of Brown's best ever scenes: the verbal battle between two friends (winner gets a Tiffany stick pin) to name the most brand names of movie theatre candy -- hilarious and uniqely Rita Mae Brown.


Murder at Monticello or Old Sins
Published in Hardcover by Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd) (1994)
Authors: Rita Mae Brown, Sneaky Pie Brown, and Wendy Wray
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The books subtitle, "Old Sins" is correct.
This, like all of the other Mrs. Murphy mysteries, was very entertaining and was an exciting read. There are a few problems, however. The author expects us to know Thomas Jefferson's entire life history, all of his relatives, all of his slaves, and everything ever written about Monticello. Raise you hand if you know these things! There is a family chart at the front of the book, but, if you're like me, it hinders more than it helps. Also, as I said earlier, "Old Sins" is correct. Most of the book is about discovering who murdered a man 175 years ago. What are they going to do when they find out who did it? Prosecute the murderer?

To Little Fuel for the Fire...
Okay - I didn't like this story as much as the previous to. I think it was way to distracted with a thin thread of an idea that the author was interested in pursuing and so the story was built around that idea - of slave/master interbreeding - of the Jefferson debate (which was more recently tied closer to the man by genetic testing in 1998, this book was published in 1994) - of sickle cell anemia as a distinctive trait that can't be removed as proof of racial intermingling no matter how strong the prejudices of the person affected QUOTE: The results of the study established that an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808), the sixth and last child born to Sally Hemings. There were approximately 25 adult male Jeffersons who would have carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and a few of them are known to have been at Monticello. Nonetheless, the study's authors said "the simplest and most probable" conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson had fathered Eston Hemings.

I was a little sad that Blair was missing on a shoot somewhere. But then, Fair seems to be having some personal revelation that may bring him back into Harry's life - so good news there. I was also pleased that no more of the main characters were bumped off in this story. Near misses, but no deaths. I love Miranda Hogendobber.

On the whole, the book was an interesting idea - but a weak execution. 3 out of 5. I've been near Charlottesville, but never to Monticello. Now I have a bug to visit... thus my peeping in on the website for Monticello.

All my love to Charlottesville Virginia
I lived in Charlottesville for 6 years before moving to NJ, and at that time, I was reading this book, and it brought back a lot of good memories. I highly recommend people to read it (although I read it before this whole new Jefferson/Sally DNA thing started, so now there might be a different perspective, but it's still good nonetheless.). Mrs.Murphy and Tucker are really cool, and their thoughts are a very nice addtion to the book.


Murder She Meowed (Thorndike Large Print Basic Series)
Published in Hardcover by Thorndike Pr (Largeprint) (1997)
Authors: Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky P. E. Brown
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This cat meows to much.
Rita, as an author, reminds me of cotton candy -- sweet, full of empty calories and no substance. Harry will never be in a position to emulate J. B. Fletcher. She exhibits more sense than Rick Shaw (who is a sheriff in name only) does but she is in the bad habit of "solving" crimes more in spite of herself than anything else. This novel is no exception.

Murder She Meowed by Rita Mae Brown
Harry and her witty cat, Mrs. Murphy are hot on the trail of another case. This time, it will be even more dangerous than the last. When a jockey is found dead in the stable at the Montpelier races, it is up to Harry and her animal friends to figure out who has put this horrible fright on the little town of Crozet. When a package comes to the post office in Crozet and is addressed to the Charlottesville Cuttery, she knows something is up because she has lived in this town all her life and has never heard of this place. She recognizes the handwriting on the recipe as a friend, or so she though, and is off to get this person for the murders of three Crozet people. She knows the forth will happen soon.
This book will surprise the reader every time they read it. Slowly, Rita Mae Brown will pull you off the trail of the murder and then back on it for a surprising ending. She does not drop any loose clues on the way that would give the ending away. Murder She Meowed kept me interested the whole time. This is however, is not a book that I would read over and over again.

Criminal Cat-Nip
Crozet, Virginia is an unusual community: aside from having what must be the highest per capita murder rate in North America, it is also a place where cats and dogs sometimes assist humans to uncover killers in their midst. The premise is extremely whimsical, and hardcore mystery fans will find the plots of the "Mrs. Murphy" series very loose indeed--but Rita Mae Brown has a talent for creating memorable characters and turns of phrase, and her lighter-than-air mystery novels are an enjoyable way to wile away a lazy afternoon or two.

MURDER, SHE MEOWED has a particularly transparent plot--but even so it is one of Brown's more interesting entries in the "Mrs. Murphy" series, reacquainting us with all the Crozet residents (both human and animal) we've come to know and love and introduces one or two new ones as well. In this particular novel, Brown sets her tale against the snobbish Virginia steeplechase community, and when a jockey of questionable background is found stabbed to death in a stable the roots of the crime may be as close at hand as the local drug dealer or as far removed in time as an old missing person mystery. As usual, Brown writes with considerable flair and elan, and fans of the series will find MURDER, SHE WROTE a particularly enjoyable outing.


Hotspur
Published in Hardcover by Thorndike Pr (Largeprint) (2003)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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Boring
I found that this book got too bogged down in details that were not necessary to the story, especially what people should and shouldn't wear for foxhunting and the breeding of hunting dogs. I usually love the Sneaky Pie series, and thought I would try another by her. I was very disappointed. The characters were very likeable, especially Sister and Shaker. The mystery itself was developed as an "oh, by the way" during her account of the Wide World of Foxhunting. I also thought that if she was going to have dialogue from the animals, they should have at least played a part in solving the mystery.

Hotspur Review
I find myself disappointed with this book. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Sneaky Pie Brown books. But this, is it a story or a guide to foxhunting? I kept waiting for the story to get going and all I got was more explanations on fox hunting. This story for me fell flat

Saturation is not always enjoyable.

While I love Rita Mae Brown's ability to co-mingle the animal and human experience, I found her detailing of the incredible complexity of the fox hunting set to be more information than I need to read a mystery.

I love Jane "Sister" Arnold, the 71 year-old Master of the Hunt and her friends/hounds/horses, but the details in this book would appeal to only the most dedicated hunt fan. I did learn one good thing, however. Americans only hunt the fox to its den, not like their brutal British cousins who hunt to the death.

HOTSPUR's murder mystery takes a second -- or sometimes third -- seat to the machinations of the hunt season, the old money, the social climbers and all the ins and outs of hunt life. I suppose if you're a member of that set, these details and the constant fretting over your horse, your wardrobe and your standing in your club would make for good reading.

It just doesn't play in Peoria....or a small town in east Texas.

I'll continue to read Rita Mae Brown and hope she realizes she's exhausted the hunt and it's time to move on to other prey.


Dolley: A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War
Published in Paperback by Bantam Books (1995)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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A pale historical account
This is a book long on accounts of parties and gossipy tidbits and short on historical accounts Dolley must have felt real horror as the British approached but this was not really portrayed in the book. Her servants seemed much more frightened. Dolley was more concerned with the politics of the day than with actual living. Altogether this book would not be missed if not read

A cup of melted ice cream
I have to say I was disappointed in this novel; I was looking for more detail on daily life and less imaginary cocktail parties and political history redone up as a novel. I doubt Dolly Madison thought or conversed as she is portrayed here. She is indeed a "dolly", puppet for a history lesson from Author Brown. It was a quick read and a fun view into American history so I give it 3 stars, but for style and substance, it's lacking.

Interesting blend of history and fiction - a good read!
Rita Mae Brown delivers again...recommended reading! Dolley has a good flavor of Madison's era. Fortunately its written as a novel and not a textbook, making it very readable and occasionally juicy. I found it to be a gentle way to get acquainted with - and interested in - early American history. Interested enough to go seek out Dolley Madison's memoirs and letters...too bad they are out of print :(


Venus Envy
Published in Hardcover by Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd) (1993)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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Good premise can't carry the whole novel
This is the third Rita Mae Brown book I've read. I loved the first two (Rita Will, Sudden Death). The premise in this novel is hilarious, and about the first third of the book does not disappoint. I'll admit, I could not put it down, but after the first third, it seemed to lose some steam. In other words, the great premise doesn't carry the whole novel. It may have been better as a short story. Anyway, all we're left with when the premise poops out are very one-dimensional characters who are either lovable 100% tolerant saints, or 100% prejudiced, narrow-minded bigots whom you can't choose but to hate. No character falls in between. A few of the plot lines ended up very unrealistic, at least to me. Unlike some of these other reviews, I absolutely loved the sequence in the painting, but I wouldn't have ended the book with it either. The problem is, by the time you get to the painting sequence, the plot has pretty much fallen apart anyway into either the mundane or the wholly unreal. Don't get me wrong, it is an interesting read and the author's humor stays with you throughout, but once the premise wears off, the novel falls apart a little.

Amusing Story with an Insight in Southern Culture
Rita Mae Brown is fantastic at creating a well-round up character - in this story it is Frazier. A woman of 35 years who takes a down-to-earth approach of life after discovering that she does not have to die afterall. Frazier, now, evaluates life and her relationships in a different light and discovers who her true friends are after the whole town is talking about her being gay. The novel is very inspiring to the extent of what one chooses to talk about in his/her final moments. It invites you to be true to yourself and to your community. Overall, the book is hard to put down - a lot of laughing throughout the entire story. I read it within a day since I could not stop. Weird ending, however, that is why I did not give it a 5-star rating. After having spent two years in Charlottesville, VA myself this book was a small journey back to this beautiful small town in Central Virginia.

Pure "Envy"
I thoughly enjoyed this book about a women who decides to comes out to her friends ands family when she is mistakenly diagonsed as dying. With a premise that that sure to be a sure fire pressure cooker for the some reason this book never fully takes on. Still all and all, I enjoyed the book. The "Zeus/Mount Olympus" is pure fun. A nice message too, Live you life and make you life your own, who cares about some one else expectations?


Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual
Published in Paperback by Bantam Books (1996)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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I'm hard pressed to think of anything worse.
I just read an excerpt from the book, The Two English Languages, as a requirement for a writing class at the University of Michigan. As it turns out, Brown secures her reputation for being a barely-above-pulp-fiction writer, desperately attempting to justify herself by attacking and belitting others who haven't undertaken the study of Latin and Anglo-Saxon (because we all know that's the only way to really know English).

Not only is the argument completely ridiculous, as English isn't even a romance language and the grammar is similar neither to Latin nor French (from which her list of cognates is taken), but her proposition that English is the most powerful literary language is entirely ethnocentric (or, more specifically, linguacentric).

All languages have the ability to show shades of meaning. English does it with lexical differences because, as a language, it borrows heavily from others, giving it a huge pool of synonyms with various origins.

Do you want a PhD?
What I like about this book is the practical advice she gives. Notes on lighting, the importance of a good computer (which is outdated now, however), the value of the OED, and other points. These are nice homey bits to read, comforting if you have any interest in writing.

The bad advice is when she gets on to how to learn to write. For instance; get an English PhD. Try homosexuality, it'll give you something to write about. Be a Latin scholar. Read this terrifically large reading list. And so on.

I don't doubt the value of learning Latin, Old English, and all the rest of the usual English Lit coursework. But I do doubt the necessity of that to become a good writer. I wanted to improve my writing, and read this book early on. Her advice about studying Latin was seemingly good, so I studied it for two years. The good part was I learned a lot of Latin. The bad thing was I didn't get any better at writing. Her focus and arrogance on academia is annoying and misleading. I spend too many years there myself (in another field) to believe otherwise. But the lure of the degree is very seductive.

My advice on learning to write? Ignore all the writers. Except for "On Writing Well", by Zinsser. That's the only book on writing I keep on my shelf.

A really good hotdog floating in a vat of horrible chili
I found Rita Mae Brown's Starting from Scratch to be a huge disappointment. Most of the information in the book has nothing to do with writing, but rather with Ms. Brown's personal politics, experiences, and life advice (having nothing to do with writing). Dotted throughout the book are Ms. Brown's obviously left winged politics. It isn't that they were left wing, I just could care less about her politics and found this to be a very inappropraite place for her to display them. Her personal experience regarding her divorce, childhood, and the like are equally unnecessary and boring. Worst of all, Ms. Brown exhorts us in her book to trust our readers, because they are smarter than we think they are, while telling us to eat right, don't do drugs, and get plenty of exercise. Perhaps good advice, but in a writing manual?

Another annoying aspect of this book is its lack of coverage on most important writing points. Character and plot are given a brush over. Agents and markets are all but ignored. A couple of literary forms, especially short fiction and non fiction, are given short shrift. Other than a few good writing exercises (which can be gotten from any website), there is basically no writing advice at all in this book.

The only reason I even gave this book two stars at all is that Ms. Brown does cover the subject of Latin, language development, and the reading necessary to a writer. This information is invaluable. If Ms. Brown could have controlled herself by staying on the subject matter, this book could have been one third its size and much better. Certainly, it was her editor's job, which goes to show that at least two people failed with this book.

Lucky me, I only paid a couple of bucks at my local used book store.


Alma Mater
Published in Hardcover by Ballantine Books (Trd) (30 October, 2001)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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Ugh. Save your money and time for something better.
I for some reason wanted to read a particular Rita Mae Brown book (this wasn't it) but forgot which one when I went to the library. So I chose this one off the shelf because I went to the College of William and Mary, a prestigious university. I wish she'd just made up some school, because it embarrasses me that she's supposed to be writing about my alma mater. She has no idea what she's talking about and is way off on a lot of the details, terminology, and layout, which just bugged the heck out of me. Now those of you unfamiliar with W&M may say, "So what?" and not care, but this just shows you that the author did not do her research and thus you have to wonder about the research, thought, and effort that went into the rest of this book and her other books. If you're going to pick a real university as your backdrop, get the details right!

A student with a clean record would not be expelled for dressing up a statue with no permanent damage, even if the statue were a religious one off campus, as it is in this book. On W&M's campus, Thomas Jefferson gets a party hat and balloons every year on his birthday, and a pumpkin on his head for Halloween.

I don't think her depiction of life and attitudes in that part of Virginia is at all accurate, even for 1980, which is when the story takes place. And I seriously doubt there are several new car dealerships in Surry County (if any). The little details can make all the difference, and when they're inaccurate, the entire work suffers.

The characters are not fully developed and I didn't care about a single one of them. The writing was poor and the story fairly predictable. I found myself skipping over large parts of text and skimming a lot. The epilogue crams the resolutions of the characters' lives into a hastily written five pages.

Reading this was a waste of time.

From a Declared Heterosexual Female . . . ;-)
With apologies to Rita Mae Brown, who is an accomplished writer, from a reader who most certainly is not: I liked some aspects of this book better than others.
Nobody I read "does" the southern family as well as she does, especially the loving, though usually tempestuous relationships between sisters. Her sense of humor is delightful -- she can be hilarious when making a serious point, which makes her message so much sweeter than preaching.
Brown is a woman's writer whose empathy is with her gender. However, in contrast to the rest of this amusing and well-told story, the Lesbian theme is handled somewhat ponderously and didactically. Gay men women, even today, may have a hard time being themselves, but I think that Lesbianism as a social issue has stopped being newsworthy or in need of defense. The book -- a very lighthearted one -- would not be the appropriate vehicle for socal comment, anyway. Brown does a grand job describing women relating to each other. Still, the sexual adventures of the Lesbian characters in this book are no more interesting (or amusing) than those of the heterosexual ones, and the book appears a bit lopsided in seeming to pretend to that.

it's really a good'un
Story of my life. I loved this book. I could read it again and again, and I have. It definitely has some hot sex scenes.


AIDS: The Hidden Agenda in Child Sexual Abuse
Published in Paperback by John Wiley & Sons (17 June, 1998)
Authors: Chris Bennetts, Mae Brown, and Jane Sloan
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Almas Gemelas
Published in Paperback by Egales (2000)
Author: Rita Mae Brown
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