Thursday, July 21, 2011

Nicole Kimberling - Primal Red

Peter Fontaine is a reporter writing for a free weekly newspaper in the quirky little town of Bellingham. Nick Olson is a reclusive painter with questionable past and a studio in the Vitamilk Building. Peter has a knack for choosing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case that place is the Vitamilk Building and the time is the moment that Shelley Vine, local art professor and rising star of the art world, is stabbed to death.

Determined to understand why Vine was killed, and convinced that breaking the story could jumpstart his career as an investigative journalist, Peter begins his own investigation into her death. As Peter uncovers more information about Vine, Olson, and the interconnected lives of the rest of the artists at the Vitamilk Building, he finds himself falling in love with Nick.

Peter wants a story but he also wants Nick, and it looks like he's going to have to make a choice before the two can paint the town Primal Red.


Comment: It was difficult to me to get in the books's pace properly. Something was good at first, probably the constant changing of text between the main character's POV and his personal thoughts. Once I got that things started to look better.
The story focuses on art and mystery. Two strong subjects. However I preferred the romance happening in there. Peter was funny and I liked him immediatly. Nick is more cute in a shy kind of way. I liked how they didn't have sex right away, it took some time and understanding which is good because many novels start with meaningless sex and then it's more difficult to see the change to deep love, especially if ther eader doesn't "see" that. In this case it happened slowly and thus, more crdibility to the relationship.
The rest of the novel was a bit predictable, the secondary characters were a bit of a stereotype but they didn't suffocate the story, considering it wasn't that big in word count.
I liked and might look for more things by the author, particulary because there's a sequel to this one.

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