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Impulse
Hazard, Wyoming, is a quiet mountain town where there's snow on the ground from October until June, the wind blows all the time, and nothing much ever happens. But that's all about to change. Because, just when the wind suddenly stops, a killer comes to Hazard -- a hunter as deadly and primal as evil itself.
When Sheriff Will Bridger sees the murdered teenage girl, it's the worst scene he's ever witnessed. But there's worse to come. Much, much worse. While the nights grow longer and the winter snow gets deeper, the violence intensifies. As does the blazing passion between Will and late-night radio host Faith Prescott. Harboring secrets as potentially dangerous as his own, Faith knows all too well the dark side of the human heart. She can help Will. If he'll only let her.
It won't be easy, though. The man who was once the boy raised by wolves is no ordinary serial killer. Fortunately, Will Bridger is no ordinary cop.
When Sheriff Will Bridger sees the murdered teenage girl, it's the worst scene he's ever witnessed. But there's worse to come. Much, much worse. While the nights grow longer and the winter snow gets deeper, the violence intensifies. As does the blazing passion between Will and late-night radio host Faith Prescott. Harboring secrets as potentially dangerous as his own, Faith knows all too well the dark side of the human heart. She can help Will. If he'll only let her.
It won't be easy, though. The man who was once the boy raised by wolves is no ordinary serial killer. Fortunately, Will Bridger is no ordinary cop.
354 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
24 people are currently reading
291 people want to read
About the author
JoAnn Ross
240 books798 followersNew York Times bestselling author JoAnn Ross has written over a hundred novels for a bunch of publishers. Two of her titles have been excerpted in Cosmo and her books have also been published by the Doubleday, Rhapsody, Literary Guild, and Mystery Guild book clubs.
A member of the Romance Writers of America's Honor Roll of best-selling authors, she's won several awards, including Romantic Times's Career Achievement Awards in both category and contemporary single title.
Currently writing a new Honeymoon Harbor series for HQN set on the Washington peninsula, that will launch in April, 2018, JoAnn lives with her husband (her high school sweetheart, who proposed at the sea wall where her Shelter Bay books are set), in the Pacific Northwest.
A member of the Romance Writers of America's Honor Roll of best-selling authors, she's won several awards, including Romantic Times's Career Achievement Awards in both category and contemporary single title.
Currently writing a new Honeymoon Harbor series for HQN set on the Washington peninsula, that will launch in April, 2018, JoAnn lives with her husband (her high school sweetheart, who proposed at the sea wall where her Shelter Bay books are set), in the Pacific Northwest.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
October 20, 2018
The storyline was good. I couldn't really get into the characters much. The H&h just did not connect for me. The mystery was good.
July 4, 2017
This was something of a disappointment to me, as Ross is one the first authors I started reading in the romance genre about 10 years ago. I thought I had loved her, and that she was great. After 10 years and having read tons more romance and having lots more to compare to, I'm finding the author I had adored isn't quite what I thought her to be. I read at least 5-7 of her books back in the day, but this wasn't one of them. So maybe it's just this story that bothers me. I have a few more of hers from the library on audio to get through, I'll soon find out.
First off, I listened to this on audio, and the narrator is new to me, Matilda Novak. Let's just say I won't be choosing any audio books based on her narration. Stilted in some parts, okay, a lot of parts, too high pitched for some of the male character parts, making the young deputy sound like an idiot and the lone Native American deputy in the story sound. . . well, stereotypical. How. Me gay savage deputy. Her timing was jilting, pausing for a breath in the oddest parts of the sentences, it sounded. Like when Captain. Kirk tried. To get his point. Across. It's only charming when Shatner does it. Also, the sexy bits don't sound so sexy. If fact, they sound down right hysterical. So if you decide to read this book, definitely read this book.
Next up, the story line, or plot. Eh. Not bad, but not great either. The bad guy was of course spotted a mile away, but the problem I had was believability. During the interactions with others throughout the book, he sounded rational, stable, and even provided insight into the killings. His manner of speaking was educated and sophisticated, compassionate even. When the parts of Man who was raised by wolves were read (and that phrase 'man who was raised by wolves' appears way too often and the narrator once again did the dumb injun voice for it, whether to try and throw everyone off or because she thought it sounded great, I dunno) - I wouldn't say he wasn't intelligent, but not of the same sophistication. The killer left poems, and it was pointed out that he had mistranslated a section, and it was an obvious and stupid mistake, something they thought proved he might not have been that smart. But the killer is the good Dr./psychiatrist, who speaks of other cultures and is very knowledgeable, so the difference in the two doesn't make sense. He's described as cold-blooded, serial killer, a sociopath perhaps, but never as having split personalities in which would explain the difference in education levels.
The hero, Will has a 16-year old kid he never knew about, that he's been raising for the last 3 months since his mother died. They don't get along, and the resolution of their conflict of which I'm not even sure why they are at such loggerheads, but the resolution is a near death experience at the end. No discussion of feelings between the two, no compromise, just a woman in the middle who knows what it's like to be the sullen 16-year-old and loves the father. Because Faith is super cool, they can get along now. Not really a resolution, more like a break of arguing, as in real life, the same issues they had (again, not sure what issues, as they were just described as not seeing eye to eye and not knowing each other) would still be there two weeks later. Not really cool in my book.
Oh, and in the beginning I'll admit to doing a little bit of paperwork while starting this audio book but I swear I was paying attention. Except I was still lost. We start off sort of dropped into the action, and that can be fine. But then we cut to another scene completely different. And then back again. I started it over again, listening to the first 30 minutes and gave it my undivided attention, thinking I was missing something. Nope. Just lots of cutting back and forth with no real explanation of time or place or rhyme or reason. A jarring way to start.
The heroine Faith has a dirty little secret, and it's really kinda icky to me . Not that tragic upbringings aren't allowed in romances, just with everything else going on, it just one more thing to bring me and the rating down. Oh, I almost forgot, she has TWO dirty little secrets - to me, neither is very flattering. Having both makes Faith a little much to take on. To top it off .
The last thing I'll point out is the heavy use of cheesy clichés. Seriously, by disc 5 I started jotting some of them down because it was getting to be too much.
Abs hard enough to do the laundry on.
Wanting to get between him & his Calvins.
Despite her name, Faith had never come easily to her.
You're not the only one with a past, and wasn't that the understatement of the century.
She'd noticed him eyeing her like a cocaine addict did a line of white powder.
She suspected Will Bridger undoubtedly lived in a cop world of good guys and bad guys, of black and white.
Didn't I always say you can't keep a good man down?
You know what they say, if you love someone, let them go.
Will, you look like you've been rode hard and put away wet.
Put a big red 'S' on this man's chest and give him a cape!
Everyone knows love is the best cure for a broken heart.
That's just what I wrote down, from disc 5. Everything was a little over the top for me. I would have liked a little less cheese and cutesy phrases and more, I dunno. . . writing?
So now I'm worried that an author I use to love in the past isn't so wonderful. Darn it! I hate going back to a book and wondering what the hell I was thinking, and as the next two audios I have for Ross are books I read several years ago, I'm worried I won't like them as much as I did years ago. Thankfully the audios are narrated by different narrators, two more I haven't heard, so I'm hoping they are at least more tolerable.
First off, I listened to this on audio, and the narrator is new to me, Matilda Novak. Let's just say I won't be choosing any audio books based on her narration. Stilted in some parts, okay, a lot of parts, too high pitched for some of the male character parts, making the young deputy sound like an idiot and the lone Native American deputy in the story sound. . . well, stereotypical. How. Me gay savage deputy. Her timing was jilting, pausing for a breath in the oddest parts of the sentences, it sounded. Like when Captain. Kirk tried. To get his point. Across. It's only charming when Shatner does it. Also, the sexy bits don't sound so sexy. If fact, they sound down right hysterical. So if you decide to read this book, definitely read this book.
Next up, the story line, or plot. Eh. Not bad, but not great either. The bad guy was of course spotted a mile away, but the problem I had was believability. During the interactions with others throughout the book, he sounded rational, stable, and even provided insight into the killings. His manner of speaking was educated and sophisticated, compassionate even. When the parts of Man who was raised by wolves were read (and that phrase 'man who was raised by wolves' appears way too often and the narrator once again did the dumb injun voice for it, whether to try and throw everyone off or because she thought it sounded great, I dunno) - I wouldn't say he wasn't intelligent, but not of the same sophistication. The killer left poems, and it was pointed out that he had mistranslated a section, and it was an obvious and stupid mistake, something they thought proved he might not have been that smart. But the killer is the good Dr./psychiatrist, who speaks of other cultures and is very knowledgeable, so the difference in the two doesn't make sense. He's described as cold-blooded, serial killer, a sociopath perhaps, but never as having split personalities in which would explain the difference in education levels.
The hero, Will has a 16-year old kid he never knew about, that he's been raising for the last 3 months since his mother died. They don't get along, and the resolution of their conflict of which I'm not even sure why they are at such loggerheads, but the resolution is a near death experience at the end. No discussion of feelings between the two, no compromise, just a woman in the middle who knows what it's like to be the sullen 16-year-old and loves the father. Because Faith is super cool, they can get along now. Not really a resolution, more like a break of arguing, as in real life, the same issues they had (again, not sure what issues, as they were just described as not seeing eye to eye and not knowing each other) would still be there two weeks later. Not really cool in my book.
Oh, and in the beginning I'll admit to doing a little bit of paperwork while starting this audio book but I swear I was paying attention. Except I was still lost. We start off sort of dropped into the action, and that can be fine. But then we cut to another scene completely different. And then back again. I started it over again, listening to the first 30 minutes and gave it my undivided attention, thinking I was missing something. Nope. Just lots of cutting back and forth with no real explanation of time or place or rhyme or reason. A jarring way to start.
The heroine Faith has a dirty little secret, and it's really kinda icky to me . Not that tragic upbringings aren't allowed in romances, just with everything else going on, it just one more thing to bring me and the rating down. Oh, I almost forgot, she has TWO dirty little secrets - to me, neither is very flattering. Having both makes Faith a little much to take on. To top it off .
The last thing I'll point out is the heavy use of cheesy clichés. Seriously, by disc 5 I started jotting some of them down because it was getting to be too much.
Abs hard enough to do the laundry on.
Wanting to get between him & his Calvins.
Despite her name, Faith had never come easily to her.
You're not the only one with a past, and wasn't that the understatement of the century.
She'd noticed him eyeing her like a cocaine addict did a line of white powder.
She suspected Will Bridger undoubtedly lived in a cop world of good guys and bad guys, of black and white.
Didn't I always say you can't keep a good man down?
You know what they say, if you love someone, let them go.
Will, you look like you've been rode hard and put away wet.
Put a big red 'S' on this man's chest and give him a cape!
Everyone knows love is the best cure for a broken heart.
That's just what I wrote down, from disc 5. Everything was a little over the top for me. I would have liked a little less cheese and cutesy phrases and more, I dunno. . . writing?
So now I'm worried that an author I use to love in the past isn't so wonderful. Darn it! I hate going back to a book and wondering what the hell I was thinking, and as the next two audios I have for Ross are books I read several years ago, I'm worried I won't like them as much as I did years ago. Thankfully the audios are narrated by different narrators, two more I haven't heard, so I'm hoping they are at least more tolerable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2015
As far as I can tell this is a stand-alone book not tied into a series, so the sheer volume of backstory is mind-boggling. The heroine's past alone is enough to fill up a trilogy, let alone one book and the author keeps piling on the tropes as the story wears on. Coupled with the serial killer plot, the fact that we meet several secondary characters, and that the story takes place within a 48 hour window - the romance is really thin. It would normally help, somewhat, that the couple does share a past - but here, with the mountain of backstory both hero and heroine are wading through? Like I said, thin.
It is readable though, and can I just say I love short chapters? I seriously think that's why I didn't DNF this one. The short chapters kept me moving along.
It is readable though, and can I just say I love short chapters? I seriously think that's why I didn't DNF this one. The short chapters kept me moving along.
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July 18, 2021Got to literally page 3 where two men slut shame some sex workers and then say there are no respectable women. And then I tossed it in the trash.
March 27, 2008
After reading Ross' books Blaze and liking it, I thought I would enjoy this one as well. Wrong! This book just downright sucked. There wasn't a single aspect of this book that I bought into at all. So it kinda shocked me to see all positive reviews on Amazon and BN. I don't know what book those people were reading because I didn't find anything redeemable about Impulse.
Right from the beginning I had problems. Ross sorta just plops you into the situation where all these nuances and and events that already exist. It made me feel like I'd missed a quarter of the book, like there were preceding chapters I should have read. Only there weren't, and I found the beginning irritating and somewhat confusing because of the way you are just plopped in there. There was a similar issue throughout the book. Ross skipped over a lot of scenes that, in my opinion, really needed to be written out. You'd be waiting for this scene, and then she'd skip right over it and give you a sentence or two recap. It sucked the life out of the book.
As for the rest...I thought the identity of the antagonist was obvious, and his whole "backstory" you might call it, made no sense to me. The romance between Will and Faith was lame. The ending was too curt. The overall flow of the story was choppy and stunted. I didn't care about the characters, the romance, or anything. I pretty much couldn't wait to finish the book once I started.
Basically, reading the book, I felt like Ross didn't care about the story; that she was just wanted to rush and get it over with and didn't put much effort into it. It made for bad reading. Why there were only positive reviews of this book online beats the hell out of me.
Right from the beginning I had problems. Ross sorta just plops you into the situation where all these nuances and and events that already exist. It made me feel like I'd missed a quarter of the book, like there were preceding chapters I should have read. Only there weren't, and I found the beginning irritating and somewhat confusing because of the way you are just plopped in there. There was a similar issue throughout the book. Ross skipped over a lot of scenes that, in my opinion, really needed to be written out. You'd be waiting for this scene, and then she'd skip right over it and give you a sentence or two recap. It sucked the life out of the book.
As for the rest...I thought the identity of the antagonist was obvious, and his whole "backstory" you might call it, made no sense to me. The romance between Will and Faith was lame. The ending was too curt. The overall flow of the story was choppy and stunted. I didn't care about the characters, the romance, or anything. I pretty much couldn't wait to finish the book once I started.
Basically, reading the book, I felt like Ross didn't care about the story; that she was just wanted to rush and get it over with and didn't put much effort into it. It made for bad reading. Why there were only positive reviews of this book online beats the hell out of me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2014
Good combination of crime drama and intrigue/suspense mixed with a love story. That's rare and unique, when one can pull that off. I enjoyed it.
May 7, 2018
Good book, I am enjoying this author.
February 6, 2022
very good book, kept me guessing with some twists and turns, as usual good romance scenes and mystery.
September 16, 2019
1.5 stars
February 13, 2022
After almost losing his life during a sting operation with his then partner Grayson Lowell, Detective Will Bridger has since moved back from Georgia to Hazard, Wyoming—where he now lives with his father —and taken up a sheriff post, working alongside Sam Charbonneaux, Hazard’s chief deputy.
When Will gets a call from his deputy informing him that a famous local skater Erin Gallagher, they both head there to investigate.
Meanwhile, Faith Prescott, a local radio presenter has been hiding from a bounty hunter named Sal Sasone for the last eighteen months. After receiving a weird phone call at the radio station where she works she wonders whether Sal has managed to track her to Hazard.
During the course of the investigation, Will learns his son Josh was last seen with the victim before she died. Does Josh have anything to do with Erin’s murder or is he as innocent as he claims?
When Will gets a call from his deputy informing him that a famous local skater Erin Gallagher, they both head there to investigate.
Meanwhile, Faith Prescott, a local radio presenter has been hiding from a bounty hunter named Sal Sasone for the last eighteen months. After receiving a weird phone call at the radio station where she works she wonders whether Sal has managed to track her to Hazard.
During the course of the investigation, Will learns his son Josh was last seen with the victim before she died. Does Josh have anything to do with Erin’s murder or is he as innocent as he claims?
February 23, 2010
This is the 2nd book of JoAnn Ross' that I've read and like the first one, it was just ok. I bought these 2 books because they were on sale, and the plot summary at the back seemed interesting enough.
Having read even just a couple of her books, I can say it's formulaic - crime-suspense, hero-lover, etc...etc... I won't say they're not good, as I was still entertained (as much as I would be entertained by just-to-pass-my-time movies), but I will most likely read another of her books again if I'll be able to buy them at a bargain or if somebody will lend me a copy.
Having read even just a couple of her books, I can say it's formulaic - crime-suspense, hero-lover, etc...etc... I won't say they're not good, as I was still entertained (as much as I would be entertained by just-to-pass-my-time movies), but I will most likely read another of her books again if I'll be able to buy them at a bargain or if somebody will lend me a copy.
February 2, 2010
A good book for reading on a cold and windy day; there is suspense enough to keep you going on late into the night.
Impulse takes place in Hazard, Wyoming, a small, windy town that is a snowmobiler's dream. In fact, there are lots of them in Hazard right now preparing for national competitions. And there is also a serial killer in Hazard.
There were some storyline glitches and unbelievable situations scattered throughout Impluse, but they weren't big enough to throw me off track. Sometimes you just gotta enjoy the read and forget about real life. In fact, isn't that why we read?
Impulse takes place in Hazard, Wyoming, a small, windy town that is a snowmobiler's dream. In fact, there are lots of them in Hazard right now preparing for national competitions. And there is also a serial killer in Hazard.
There were some storyline glitches and unbelievable situations scattered throughout Impluse, but they weren't big enough to throw me off track. Sometimes you just gotta enjoy the read and forget about real life. In fact, isn't that why we read?
August 14, 2009
Again Ms. Ross is terrific! this is one that I picked up second hand and I really like it. She has a way of just sucking you into the story and you can't put it down. You wonder what is going to happen through most of the book. There are no easily forseeable plot lines. You will be waiting to see what happens with baited breath (which you need to avoid because bait stinks). I give this one 5 out of 5 stars.
December 12, 2015
Faith Prescott came to Hazard, Wyoming trying to hide from a bounty hunter who was after her. This was the town that Sheriff Will Bridger was from who Faith had run into him a few years before in Savannah. She had hoped that even though their first encounter had been covered with lies, she still was very interested in him. Now she finds herself involved in the murder of an intern at the radio station where she was the night disk jockey. This is an interesting story with a great ending.
December 30, 2015
First time to read this author. Story starts off with intringue but the excitement kind of fizzles out towards the end. I must admit that the author does a good job in character development, and her stories flow quite well as a result. The suspense story is mostly what kept me going, the romance was too-little-n-too-light. I may try another of the author's books in future.
September 19, 2011
I very much enjoyed JoAnn Ross' Impulse It's a crime-suspense tale with romance and it was very entertaining. It is a bit on the formulaic side as has been said by a couple of reviewers? Yes, but that didn't detract from its entertainment value. I'll not hesitate to read another book by her.
May 1, 2008
This was the first book I've read by this author. I liked it but had it figured out who-done-it before I was even halfway through it. Still got love a hot country sheriff!
July 1, 2010
SBC task--Characters do an outdoor activity.
November 8, 2009
Pretty good book :~)
March 11, 2011
lots of twists.
August 5, 2011
Good if you like suspense mixed with a little romance.
April 4, 2015
Radio DJ (Faith) and indian sherrif (Will) chasing killer
July 25, 2012
Good camp read, quick but could put it down when I needed to jump in the lake.
March 3, 2013
This is a great thriller by Joann Ross. The story is gripping and everything a romantic suspense is supposed to be.
November 5, 2014
I'm really liking JoAnn Ross.
March 9, 2015
This is a quick easy read. Never once did it drag on. I did figure out "who done it" fairly quickly, but enough twists to keep me interested.
Read
February 6, 2017Great book. I really enjoy her writing. The story is entertaining
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews