Search the Shadows

Amazingly, this is the first Barbara Michaels I’ve ever read. It was a good page-turner, and the mystery was satisfyingly atmospheric in its gothicness and twisty with its misdirection. The romance, however, felt sort of tacked-on at the end. I was pleased to have a romance with an intentionally unlikeable heroine, for a change. She’s rude and selfish, snide towards all other women, and feels very little sense of guilt over neglecting her relations. She also does not hesitate to use any tools available to her to achieve her own ends, including people. But of course, she is also beautiful and unaware of it, feeling that her dark coloring makes her unattractive in comparison to her fair-skinned and fair-haired mother. This makes show more pretty much every man she encounters willing to literally walk over fire to help her.

I read this for the 2017 Romance Bingo. It fits the Gothic Romance square, as it has most of the elements of gothic literature, except the usual supernatural one, if you discount several characters who seem to have almost psychic thought connection or leaps of intuition. show less

The plot was hokey and full of holes and yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. Mixed in with the mystery of who is Haskell's real father and how did her mother die is some nice discussion on the Amarna period.

I like many of Barbara Michaels' works, but I found this one a chore to complete and unsatisfying once done. Haskell's motivations were never realistic for me, and the secondary characters didn't really have any motivations at all - they just showed up on occasion to nudge Haskell in one direction or another, and then compliantly disappeared. There was no actual delving into history or archaeology - just the mention of a few artifacts and some throw-away stories about early 20th century archaeology. The plot took forever to set up, and then settled in and went no place. **Warning: May Contain Spoilers**
Haskell finds out that the man she had thought was her biological father (but whom she'd never met or cared at all about) might not show more have been actually. This upsets her dramatically, causing her to ditch her fiance & family, drive to another city, and get a low-level job in a museum to try to find her real father (who might have worked in that area... maybe). She dithers, visits her aunts, leaves her aunts, pokes around a bit for no particular reason, dates a bunch of uninteresting guys, draws some completely unwarranted conclusions, does a bunch of shopping, bitches about how boring the job is, mopes a bit, gets mild threats from random people - and (thinks that she) figures out who her father is!!! You'd think she'd be all excited and everything, but nah. She just wanted a name. Then, in the last ten pages or so, a bunch of people chase her around the deserted museum, try to kill her, and reveal all the real answers to the mysteries (including a mystery that was never even really introduced). Then she makes an out-of-the-blue and frankly really creepy choice of love interest. The plot could have been tolerable with a more likable heroine and with almost everything except the beginning and end cut out. As it is, this was one for the dustbin to me. show less

Search the Shadows tells the tale of an orphan who heads to Chicago to discover who her real father was. It’s a serviceable mystery, but it’s not up to the usual high Barbara Michaels standard.

4th re-read of the year for Barbara Michaels done.

Barbara Michaels, the pen name for Elizabeth Mertz, was an Egyptologist for her other career. It’s expected that the accomplished woman who want to sneak Egyptology themes and settings into even her Gothic work under the Michaels name.

Even if this book is set with a museum curator’s work, there is nothing about artifacts and Egyptology here – instead the protagonist Haskell, obsessed with her mother’s death and who her father may actually be, is digging through another sort of potent history, her own biological tree.

The premise is sound, the pacing as structured as can be with this kind of story, but the plot is too calm. It’s not enough to warrant a full-length novel, so show more there is lagging.

An attempt or so on Haskell’s life paints a gothic splash, suspense is only there toward the end during a confrontation with the big bad, and the mystery – while not obvious exactly – isn’t that interesting because by the end I didn’t care much who the real father was. Romance is in the background to where I wasn’t sure who she’d end up choosing, but I was happy with the choice when it was made.

I do wish something different had happened with the elderly museum director, however. I think there was emotional potential when she discovered who he really was to her. Tragedy cut those strings too abruptly.

Overall this is an average read – Michaels writing style is addicting to me, so I could easily keep reading, but it’s a story that passes through the eyes and then out the brain again. Just not memorable. If you’re new to Michaels, start elsewhere, but if you’re a fan, it’s worth a read. show less

Interesting enough while reading it, but I guessed some, although not all, of whodunit. The brief mentions of Egyptology were more interesting than the story. There is a character reminiscent of Amelia Peabody's husband.

I have enjoyed this book several times through the past few years but I found it a little less appealing lately. I realized I really don't like the heroine. I find the setting and subject quite interesting. The storyline is good. The heroine is self-righteous and judgmental. I love Barbara Michaels but this one is a little way down the list.