The Ugly Duckling

Iris Johansen is a romance author who actually puts a plot and developed characters into her stories. This book is about Nell, a mousy, plain, timid woman who marries a sophisticated and wealthy man. A hit man kills her husband and their daughter, and Nell is severely battered and almost killed tryin......more

I read this novel maybe fifteen years ago and could not clearly remember the plot any more. But I did remember very much liking it. My library carries it. Upon a visit I started to reread it there, found I was enjoying refreshing my memory, and therefore checked it out. Upon re-reading it now at hom......more

First off the book did fall short of my expectation though it was an interesting read. I still don't get the need to turn the character beautiful. So you have a plain jane, plus sized heroine who is a doormat. Trampled by her husband, parents and pretty much every one she meets and she takes it in g......more

This was much better than I thought it would be. I didn't figure out the mystery til it was solved!......more

This book shouldn't have taken me almost a week to finish - but I just couldn't get into these characters. One thing that Johansen seems to fall prey to in her books is too many characters. Some of them don't even have page-time, so it's a challenge to me to keep all these people straight; I was con......more