The Delilah Complex

The plot in underlined in several of the reviews below, but, nevertheless, this was another one of her books that I simply could not put down or stop thinking about when I was laying down to go to sleep at night. Rose has managed to get her audiences tangled up in the plot. I really did not figure out the ending or the perpetrator, since I was already envisioning someone else, but that is what makes me love her books even more. I was taking breaks at work to read, in between classes and even while playing cards with my boyfriend, that's how good it was. If you read Halo Effect, the first one with Dr. Morgan Snow, then you definitely want to read this one. The chemistry between Morgan and Noah is incredible and I just couldn't wait until they got together, which they did, and very vividly. Great book, definitely worth it.

M. J. Rose first caught my attention with the LIP SERVICE, an erotic thriller . . . since then, I believe I've read everything else by her and haven't been disappointed. So when I saw her latest was out, THE DELLILAH COMPLEX, I made it a point to read it as soon as I possibly could . . . and I must say that this is still another addition to her list of smart, sexy tales that I've enjoyed--and you will too. THE DELILAH COMPLEX is the second in Rose bills as "a Dr. Morgan Snow novel" (she first appeared in THE HALO EFFECT) . . . this time, Snow is being brought to work with a group of women who make up a secret group known as the Scarlet Society . . . when bodies start disappearing, the members become concerned and they turn to her for help . . . . yet what starts out as counseling quickly becomes a murder investigation. Though I read and very much enjoyed THE HALO OFFECT, I like how Rose made it possible for you to enjoy her latest book without having to have read the first book in the series . . . also, the more I read this quick-moving book, the more I felt for the main character and her teenage daughter . . . and I kept wanting to find out what was going to happen next. Rose writes extremely well . . . there were several memorable passages; among them: * I poured salt into the water. Supposedly salt makes the water boil faster and the pasta taste better. I saw that once on an episode of MARTHA, and anything I can do to make the food I cook taste better, I remember. I seem to be missing the cooking gene; I can even ruin prepared food. * We all lie. We learn when we are small children and see an overweight woman in the pool and cry out--Mommy, look, there's a fat lady--and our mothers tell us that isn't nice, that we shouldn't say things that can hurt people's feelings. Because in some cases it's kinder to lie, we are taught to ingest moral cyanide in the name of civility. And then one ay we get to a point in our lives--perhaps the point that Shelby Rush was at that moment--when the truth is the only way we can begin to help and heal, but still we obfuscate and hide because it is what we are used to doing. * He listened intently, reading my face, my expressions--paying attention to what I was saying and what I wasn't. That's what he did. He listened to me. It was how he'd seduce me, by asking questions no one had ever asked me: about how I felt listening to patients all day long, about what it was like taking in all the pain and confusion and processing it. And for a while, I had luxuriated in his questions. Talked and talked. Frantically. Wildly. Like a butterfly that had been caught in a net for hours and then suddenly let go.

This book I couldn't put down. Ok, I had to. But I kept coming back to it before any of the others. I haven't read the first Morgan book, but you can be sure it is going to the top of my TBR pile. Morgan is contacted by a secret society to assist them with their issues - someone is killing off the men they invite to their events. Their events, by the way, usually involve domination and sex. Morgan struggles with the morality issues as well as the privacy issues once she, and the police, realize that the men that are being killed are connected. There are a lot of twists and turns is this mystery - once again the Cajun character has seduced me - but I thought it was great and I never suspected the ending.

I read Lip Service and knew I'd found a fabulous author with a voice I could lose myself in. I counted the months until DELILAH. From the opening scene, you're hooked. Great, multi-layered, complex characters. And the plot is just so spicy, as it all builds and comes together, it's like savoring an eight course meal. Fabulous twist ending that, at least this reader, didn't see coming. MJ now ranks as one of my favorites. If you get hooked on her like I did, Lip Service and Flesh Tones will not dissappoint!