HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Breathless

by Laura Lee Guhrke

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1023264,232 (3.95)3
Award-winning author Laura Lee Guhrke steps back to a timeof Southern propriety -- and passion -- in this thrilling page-turner laced with heated sensuality. A lawyer is reunited with an unforgettable lady from his past -- and together, they step into a web of small-town scandal and desire. Lily Morgan may be Shivaree, Georgia's most talked-about lady. Everyone in town knows about the bitter break-up of her marriage five years before, when Daniel Walker, her husband's tough, uncompromising lawyer, tore her reputation to shreds and left her with nothing but a wish to get even. But now something about Daniel makes her blood boil and her pulse quicken...not with righteous fury, but with passion. Daniel has returned to Shivaree to once again match wits with Lily Morgan. The thought of a rematch with Lily delights him, for he has never forgotten her hot temper -- or her lovely looks. But when a shocking murder shakes the town, Daniel joins Lily to find a killer, and their unexpected partnership sparks something between them that they never expected -- desire. Now Daniel, the strong-willed lawyer for whom winning is everything, realizes he must win the one reward he can't live without: Lily's forgiveness -- and her love.… (more)
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 3 mentions

Showing 3 of 3
I love Laura Lee Guhrke. She writes such wonderful female characters. Self-possessed, flawed, but well-rounded and so damned likable. Her males are also pretty atypical for most of the romance world. They're actually, god forbid, pretty damned considerate. There's never any "wow this is skirting way too close to the edge of rape" for my tastes in her books. (Or not the ones I've read thus far anyway.)

Not to mention that this book does something that a lot of romance novels don't do very well: it has a plotline independent of when the clothes are going to start coming off. A slower build into a murder mystery that I honestly only figured out about the same time our heroine sussed it out.

Just wonderful. I sort of want to abandon all else and read Laura Lee Guhrke's entire back catalogue. ( )
  dukedukegoose | Jan 26, 2015 |
Wow, I loved this book. Breathless takes place at the turn of the century... a time period I'm not that fond of... and I still loved it. I picked this book up because Wendy said it was her favorite book of all time and she owns 2 copies of it. Could her reason for loving it be because the heroine is a librarian? Well, that could be part of it, but I'm sure it's because the writing is superb, the characters are wonderfully drawn, and the story is filled with humor and is utterly charming.

This is a enemies-to-lovers story. Daniel is a lawyer, the lowest of the low as far as Lily, the town's librarian, is concerned. During her divorce trial where he represented her husband, he falsely accused her of adultery thereby ruining her reputation in the small Georgia town where she lives. But Lily has backbone and refuses to be cowed by the gossips in town.

Now Daniel is back and Lily is horrified. Lily has been trying to get rid of the local "social club" which is nothing but a brothel which she holds responsible for her straying husband's despicable behavior. Daniel has political ambitions and his main supporter has brought him back in town to overturn the injunction against the "social club". The plot gets a bit more intense with a murder of one of the "girls" at the social club, but it is very well done and the pages just flew by. Daniel and Lily fight a growing attraction and eventually Daniel realizes that he was wrong about Lily during her divorce trial. All the characters were engaging and well written and the dialogue is witty and had some very funny moments. I especially LOVED the scene where Lily refuses to issue Daniel a library card. A hoot!

When I first read this I was a bit annoyed with how the hero refused to see the truth about the heroine until late in the story. So I gave it a B+ but after thinking and thinking about it, I realized it didn't matter and made their coming together that much better. This one is a KEEPER.

This book reminds me a little of the movie The Long, Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (loved that movie). Read this book with that movie in mind and you'll see what I mean.
GRADE: A ( )
  reneebooks | Aug 2, 2009 |
Breathless instantly caught my attention with its unusual premise and setting. The characters were strongly drawn and, because of their initial antagonism, had great chemistry. The scene in which the heroine first sets eyes on the hero and, marching right up to him without saying a word, slaps him in front of the whole town, is great. It draws a daring line in the sand, and I gleefully anticipate a battle of the sexes to end all battles.

Daniel Walker is a lawyer on a mission. He's been sent back to his small hometown Shivaree by the big wigs in Atlanta to take care of some business for them. A gentleman's club owned by one of Daniel's backers (Daniel has a lot of ambition and hopes to be a senator) has been closed down thanks to the petitioning of one Lily Morgan. Daniel is to overturn the judge's ruling and get the club back up and running. If this weren't enough to place him in direct opposition to Lily, the two also share unpleasant history. Daniel was the lawyer who sued her on behalf of her ex husband for divorce. Thanks to this divorce Lily is the scarlet woman of her small town. She is shunned and scorned, and her own family won't talk to her. And she blames Daniel for much of her woe. Daniel, for his part, doesn't feel any remorse for how he treated her during the divorce trial, and no sense of responsibility for her present plight. His refrain is that he's just doing his job.

I read Breathless always waiting for the other shoe to drop - I felt like this situation was a recipe for disaster, one in which the heroine would get terribly hurt, the hero would walk all over her, and I had a lot of sympathy for Lily. She's treated terribly by her neighbors, who wrongly malign her as an adulteress and outrageously blame her for her husband's infidelity. But she never gives up or lets others get her down. When it comes to the club, she vows to fight Daniel all the way in his efforts to reopen it. She has personal reasons, besides the usual moral ones, for wanting it closed - it's the house of sin her husbanded frequented during their loveless, miserable marriage. But besides Daniel's threats to Lily that he won't fight her fairly on this, that he has the killer instinct and the skills of manipulation she lacks, he actually doesn't treat her too badly (besides not believing she’s not an adulteress and believing all the terrible things her ex husband said about her – which, you know, doesn’t win him any points.) Lily manages to rally the women, after valiantly overcoming initial difficulties because of her bad reputation, while Daniel rallies the men. Soon quiet Shivaree is thrown into turmoil and divided by discord, with the women marching, protesting, and harassing their unhappy men to vote to keep the club closed. This part of the book was enjoyable enough - the tension and fighting between Daniel and Lily is fun and sexy. It helps that they live right next door to each other while Daniel's staying in Shivaree.

But then the gender war over the club is curtailed by a murder at the club of one of its prostitutes. Amos, a young friend of Lily's is accused and arrested. The lines of alliance are immediately redrawn, and the former issues raised by the Shivaree gender war are summarily abandoned in favor of bringing Lily and Daniel together. He agrees to defend Amos, and she gets to be his sidekick. You would think that this would provide ample opportunity for them to get closer, for amping up the chemistry, and make things interesting. To my dismay, things got boring, and I found myself slogging through a court drama that is laboriously, ponderously executed. The romance became an afterthought while the hero and heroine work towards winning this case.

When the murder trial business is finally dispensed with, we’ve got little more than 50 pages left in which to resolve, or actually develop a romance between Daniel and Lily and address their problems - like his assumption that she’s adulterous, his siding with her evil, lying ex husband, his legal sophistries to justify his actions, and the fact that HE RUINED HER LIFE. The last is completely swept under the rug. They fall quickly in love, and Daniel begins to think, gee, maybe she’s not a cold, lying, cheating harlot (the worst part is he has this epiphany when she responds to his kisses so “innocently.” Aaargh! Nothing annoys me more than that medieval witch dunking test of virginity.) Then we get to the question: will Daniel sacrifice his political aspirations for the woman he loves? Because a future senator can’t possibly marry a divorcée. Everyone gets a chance to be noble martyrs, and a happily ever after is swiftly wrapped up. I was pretty disappointed in Breathless, considering its potential. ( )
  theshadowknows | Mar 11, 2009 |
Showing 3 of 3
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Award-winning author Laura Lee Guhrke steps back to a timeof Southern propriety -- and passion -- in this thrilling page-turner laced with heated sensuality. A lawyer is reunited with an unforgettable lady from his past -- and together, they step into a web of small-town scandal and desire. Lily Morgan may be Shivaree, Georgia's most talked-about lady. Everyone in town knows about the bitter break-up of her marriage five years before, when Daniel Walker, her husband's tough, uncompromising lawyer, tore her reputation to shreds and left her with nothing but a wish to get even. But now something about Daniel makes her blood boil and her pulse quicken...not with righteous fury, but with passion. Daniel has returned to Shivaree to once again match wits with Lily Morgan. The thought of a rematch with Lily delights him, for he has never forgotten her hot temper -- or her lovely looks. But when a shocking murder shakes the town, Daniel joins Lily to find a killer, and their unexpected partnership sparks something between them that they never expected -- desire. Now Daniel, the strong-willed lawyer for whom winning is everything, realizes he must win the one reward he can't live without: Lily's forgiveness -- and her love.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.95)
0.5
1
1.5
2 1
2.5
3 5
3.5 2
4 4
4.5 4
5 5

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 202,659,797 books! | Top bar: Always visible