Exclusive

This fast paced treasure from Sandra Brown delivers us into the secretive world of politics. Barrie Travis, a news boadcaster, is privy to information of the death of the First Lady's infant son. And is twisted into doing the story, the whole story.
Between the mania of the press, the sleazy political characters, the mental health of the First Lady & Barrie's own tangles with her bosses, this is an intriguing plot that is plausible & very bold.
I thouroughly enjoyed this book. One of Browns best. With all that has gone on at the White House in the last few years....very beliveable!
Grab your beach chair, towel & sunscreen....you'll be there 'til the surprising end.
if you find my comments of interest, please click the "YES"--thanks--CDS

As usual with a Sandra Brown book, I was hooked after only a couple of pages. Barrie, a reporter with a small time tv station,recieves a call from the wife of the President of the United States, inviting her to meet for coffee. The Presidents wife is still in mourning for her baby son who died from S.I.D.S.A web begins to unravel involving wife beating, murder,drugs and the abuse of power.Barrie becomes involved with Gray, a former presidential aide (gorgeous of course ) and together they form a partnership which threatens to bring down the government. It's thrills a second with "Exclusive" and a very satisfying,pacy read.

This lady has a wonderful gift in her ability to write wonderful books. How she manages to think up all of her stories amazes me. This book keeps you on your toes till the end. Barrie is a reporter who has made a few mistakes in her previous reporting experiences and is struggling to improve her reputation in her occupation. The president's wife, who lost her baby recently, asks to meet with her on an off the record meeting, much to her amazement. From the meeting, Barrie sees a story on SIDs as the baby belonging to the president and his wife died of it. As she looks into the story, it starts looking like murder instead, and then the story really heats up and doesn't let up until the last page. Just when you think you have it solved another twist shows up and takes you in another direction. Great book!

To be honest, I've been "hot and cold" on Sandra Brown's novels. This book hooked me right away! It is the best book I've read by Ms. Brown. The story held my interest because of the plot twists and turns. Just when you think you have a certain character "pegged", you get a surprise!! "Exclusive" mixes politics, romance and mystery superbly. The characters are very believable -- you keep turning the pages, anxious to see what will happen next! You will not be bored with the book.

After writing a slew of strictly romance novels, Sandra Brown in recent years has devised a compromise--she's focused more on suspense in later novels, but still throws in the obligatory romantic entanglements. EXCLUSIVE stands as her best attempt to marriage the two, thanks to some strong central characters and one of her more interesting plotlines in recent memory. The book revolves around Washington reporter Barrie Travis, who gets no respect from her peers, television viewers, or anyone else who might have some importance. Then she receives a call from the First Lady of the United States, and the ensuing coversation--the President and his wife just lost their child to SIDS--piques the reporter's interest. Suffice it to say, there's foul play at hand, literally from every corner of the plot. Barrie gets help along the way from an old colleague, as well as one of the President's former officials(and the obligatory lover interest). This being fiction, some of the plotlines border on ludicrous(here, the President is a cruel, manipulative [man] out to destroy not only his wife, but anyone else in his way), but Brown throws in just enough twists to make it interesting.And she saves the biggest twist for the very last page--it will definately surprise some. Overall, of the Brown books that I've read, this remains the best.

My mother-in-law handed me this book one day, and I took it full of skepticism. I'd never heard of Sandra Brown, nor was I terribly interested in suspense novels. I certainly misjudged this book.
Sandra Brown presents us with a wonderful plot twisting, suspesful tail in which we follow the first lady of the united states through dealing with her child's death. She doesn't believe that her baby really died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), but is having quite a bit of trouble finding any evidence to the contrary.
The first lady takes her leap of faith in confiding in a scarcely known reporter for a not-so-hot magazine. The reporter is the key to the mystery's undoing.
The book is fantastic! Since reading this book I've gone on to read at least seven other books by Sandra Brown and I certainly intend to read more!! Enjoy!!!

Brown's "Witness" is the best romantic suspense novel I have ever read. Because of that, I picked up this one, but it's not up to par. The suspense aspect was gripping, but at the end there were a couple twists which were so far-fetched I felt like I'd been tricked. But I don't want to be overly harsh - the thriller aspect did hold my attention and keep me turning pages, even with its flaws.
The romance, however, was bleh. Her heroine, Barrie, is annoying and not too bright sometimes. When she meets the hero, Gray (who I kept transposing in my mind as Gary throughout the book) [WARNING: This could be considered a mild spoiler] she wanders into his house to take a nap while he's away!! Then, when he gets back, it goes basically like this: G: "What are you doing here?" B: "I've come to see you." G:"Oh, yeah?" - takes off clothes - "Well, how do you like me naked?" - pounces on Barrie- they proceed to have sex. Of course, that's a paraphrase. It actually took four pages. In the fictional time frame of the novel, I'd estimate it took five minutes. SERIOUSLY.
Maybe Brown just threw that in because she knew we wouldn't get another real sex scene. But hey, I'd rather have nothing than that! Better to set up the romance than throw in sex for sex's sake! Don't get me wrong, I like steam, but this was just too bizarre. It really turned me off.
In the last chapter, of course, the "I love you"s are exchanged. We don't see how or why Gray comes to the conclusion that he loves Barrie, though. Yeah, he obviously thinks she's hot, and they throw in how much he admires her courage....but love? Barrie isn't much better. I'm not really sure why she loves Gray. Because he believes in her?
As for character development, you get about a paragraph for poor Gray, and it's pretty standard: [paraphrase] "My parents died...my sister doesn't want to see me...my friends betrayed me...therefore, I don't pursue relationships and instead became a cold-blooded special forces agent." Barrie's professional insecurities are made clear, but her personal ones don't get much deeper than Gray's. Barrie: [paraphrase]"My daddy cheated on my mom so I shy away from men." Thanks, Freud.
In Brown's defense, these types of novels are hard to write. It's hard to mix a believable love story into a believable suspense thriller. Who has time to examine their feelings when being shot at? Still, Brown managed it in "Witness." I'll read more of her books in the hopes that she does it again.

All of her books I have read suffer from shortcomings that always point to the same problem:

1) Hastily put together plots that just do not hold water.

2) Hastily written stories that always, with some rewriting would have been much, much better.

3) Stories that clearly show she did not bother to do any decent amount of research.

And yet not a single one of her books is without redemption. Many of them are page turners that keep us entertained even if we have to badly suspend disbelief, and disregard one dimensional characters, to be able to enjoy them.

My take is that she is a very talented writer; so talented, in fact, that she can constantly put half baked stories in print and they still hit the best seller lists all the time. I don't think there are many writers that can get away with that. She is the best, or at least one of the best, but she is lazy.

This is my last of her books. There must be other writers that are almost as good as her, and still take care to give us polished stories. I am off to search Amazon.

**Spoliers* This was my first book by this author. Though I wasn't over impressed, the author finally won me over in the epilogue of this novel. There was a lot in this book that made no sense. There was a lot of cringe worthy dialogue as well. And yet for the most part I was mildly entertained, at no point did I truely come to care for Barrie and Gray. The woman was a lousy reporter, barnone. And the whole time I was wondering who was taking care of Gray's horses while he was running around Washington. I can't believe that a man (The Senator)who had the type of relationship he reportedly had in this book with his daughter would encourage said daughter to marry a man who murdered a child-and then he didn't immediately wonder whether the man might have killed his own grandchild. There's so many things really, that makes the plot of this novel unbelievable-plus it relies too much on people NOT talking and well...luck. But again, Ms. Brown is a talented storyteller and you find yourself going along even though you know what she's saying is crazy. So in all, I do think this book is worth a peek, but you'll probably forget all about it within a week.

This was the first book by Sandra Brown I had the pleasure to read. I was up all night because I just could not stop reading it. I have read enough mystery and suspense novels to at least have some sense of how the book will end - this one was a complete suprise. I was shocked and loved it! I buy this book for gifts and give it to anyone I think will enjoy it.
Well worth the time and the money.