Who recommends: Lynn, Danielle, JW, Linda, Barbara, Edith
Who discommends:

Highly recommended as a SF Romance.

Set in the near future, lots of good tech fun stuff with a sort of minisub and so on. But lots of great casual worldbuilding in the background.

If you actively dislike Shakespeare would be the only possible objection to this book.

She's doing salvage and comes across a refugee boat, sunk by parties unknown, killing 50 people including 18 children. He's the investigator, with the INS, investigating possible wrongdoing in his own service.

This is a *great* book. Go buy it now. I particularly like this book because the hero recognizes the heroine's abilities in some areas are beyond his, and that he cannot tell her not to do dangerous things that she needs to do anymore than she could ask the same of him. --Lynn (07 Feb 00)

A mild recommend, it was a pleasant enough, action-y book. I remember thinking it would make a great movie.--Danielle (18 Oct 00)

I liked Blind Waves a lot; fun adventure story and very good romance.--JW (19 Oct 00)

I loved this one. Gould mentions (I think) that he was inspired by the relationship between Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane in the DL Sayers books, and I could see a similarity. I liked the way the h/h become a team and share an almost instant understanding.--JW (24 Jan 01)

What a satisfying read - a very solid SF Romance that started kind of slow (can you imagine I was checking page numbers about 20 pages in?) then took off. Lots of "narrow escape" scenes and even a touching and funny romantic scene when the hero proposes to the heroine.

You start with your basic post-deluge world - you know, where the ice caps have melted and made previous inland into coast. The people who used to live on land that is now inundated - well, they are no longer citizens of the United States because they own the ocean floor, not land.

The basic plot is fueled by the world in which our h/h find themselves, and some of the social, economic, and political implications of such a world.

Patricia - not Tricia and not Patty - owns a bit of property on one of the new floating islands - New Galveston. But she makes her living doing salvage work using a ship and mini-sub. You have a very capable, smart, and entirely likeable woman of the future as a main character.

Then one day on a very routine mission to help an oil company cap a leak in an underground tank (what do *you* think happened to all those gas stations that are now underwater?) she runs across a scuttled ship with a grisly cargo of drowned passengers. She records it all and shoots the compressed video to friends and relatives shortly before she is told to halt and fired upon by - well, suffice it to say this is not a mystery. You have a pretty good idea who is behind what has happened; you're just left to discover why and what else they have up their sleeves.

Enter Thomas, who is employed by the INS - yes, now a part of the military because of all those deluged people who keep insisting they belong in the US. He's just a standard investigator working for a thoroughly unliked agency. And because he is investigating a suspected internal breach of operations, he is a target for killers who want to keep certain things from becoming public.

BLIND WAVES has very solid plot and writing - good action that moves the plot, i.e. - excellent scenes where we have something our h/h have to do and reveal parts of their character while they pass the time. You can see their attraction grow. Expect a bit of techno-garble when the heroine is in the submersible or explaining the operation of floating islands to Thomas.

A recommend - dig it out of your TBR and enjoy a very clever and resourceful heroine. Lots of quotes from Shakespeare that are appropriate. In the afterward, the author confesses he had the romance between Lord Peter and Harriet from BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY in mind as he wrote the book. Don't expect a Miles but do expect to be entertained.--Barbara (26 Dec 01)

Definite recommend. I found this amazingly romantic, especially for a book written by a man. The instant attraction and relationship was incredibly well done. I've started collecting all his books. Has anyone read any others? Are they as good?--Edith (19 May 02)

I have read all of them. Ummm, for the life of me, I can only recall one more - a coming of age story about a kid who has "powers". No romance in that one as such. That one was his first. JUMPER. A good story but of a different type than BLIND WAVES.

His other is WILDSIDE. Charlie inherits a farm from his uncle and discovers in the barn a door to another world. Well, actually maybe it's a copy of this world without people. You know where the gold and diamond deposits are since the world is the same. So he and some friends decide to do a little mining in the other world. The government - ummm, a little vague about which part of the evil government - wants the secret. But Charlie really doesn't think the door or the other world belongs to them. A little skulking around and thrills but also no romance as such. This one shows more of the promise that was fulfilled in BLIND WAVES.--Barbara (19 May 02)