jo_mama

ha! sorry - i'm not a man, but i am married to one! it's like nature for a woman to read into everything a man does and analyze it to death (have you read/seen 'he's just not that into you'?), especially a woman, like eva, with deep insecurity issues. gideon is so typically male! he does not understand that taking a woman up on her offer of sex might be leading her on. he doesn't understand why a hotel room isn't romantic. and he doesn't get why eva wants to know everything. we women want to know everything, right? lol - that's why we're here.  i'm not really standing up for gideon. he's easy to love while reading the book because we are in eva's head, and eva loves gideon. too much, in fact. we're driven to hate him and suddenly back in love with him again - the power of writing! but he is flaaaaawed. not the man for me by any measure, but i understand the man and the woman who loves him.

i think we'll have to agree to disagree on our conclusions. i think gideon is an honest guy. he's working desperately throughout reflected to get eva to trust him completely. he's also not very 'chatty' when it's not about sex, so i can't imagine him offering corinne much more than a "don't worry about eva" or "eva is non of your business" line if she were to question him. and when would she do all this questioning? while he's at work and can easily avoid her calls? when they are at events and he's bombarded with people bidding for his attention? he might be spending his free time with corinne, but it's all spent in public so to attract attention.  corrine's behavior is evidence to me that she does not think gideon and eva are over. if she thought she had him she wouldn't have to make eva jealous. she's still playing games and trying to push eva out.  i think gideon's behavior is being overanalysed. he's a man, and in such his motives are very simple. he says he wants eva and all his actions are working to that end. even nathan is easy - he wants eva and money, and he is working towards those goals. it's the females of the story who are stirring the pot and causing friction (eva included).

is it possible that he was incredibly straight with corinne? she didn't argue with eva that he wasn't in love with eva, just that he was spending all his time with her (corinne). he might have made it clear to corinne that he was still with eva, but that he wanted to spend some time with her. she's desperate enough for him to accomidate, probably knowing full well that if she didn't that magdalene would be more than wiling to jump in. pathetic women that they are. a couple leaks to the tabloids via his pr team about rekindling old flames and he's all good.

hi sylivia,  on high recommendation from a friend of mine i picked up the crossfire series a few months back and really enjoyed them. i've read them 3 times so far and i'm still not able to put them down once i'm going. it prompted me to pick up 'seven years to sin', since it was the precurser to 'bared to you', and i'm more than a little blown away by how similar and different these 2 stories are.  my first question is in regard to your research. obviously 'seven years to sin' required an intimate knowledge of the time period and society therein. and the language! aside from a few verbs that you seem to favor i would have been easily convinced the 2 books were written by seperate people. did you do a great deal of research for your historical books, or were they perhaps inspired by your inherent interest in the times? are you more comfortable writing for then as opposed to now?  and my second question is about perspective, as the crossfire books are from eva's point of view and 'seven years to sin' is third person, and i wonder what your preference is in both your role as a writer and a reader. first person stories carry a bit more excitement (for me, anyways) and mystery in the inability to know the whole story at once, but are they as exciting for you to write?  that's all for now, but thanks for what you do.  jo

why must i choose between desperate and manipulative? i think one breeds the other. manipulation in itself is not evil or bad - it's a skill - a skill she was trying to use at the dinner where she spoke to gideon all evening and in her attempts to drive eva away.  makes me think he must be even more gorgeous than i can imagine, cause i wouldn't put up with a lot of his crap. billions of dollars and a pretty face won't make me sign up for spontenous dream raping. maybe eva should mention that part to corinne - might cure that desperation thing for her.

several people have asked how gideon knew it was nathan who beat cary so quickly. i don't think that it would take a huge assumption to reach that conclusion. he knew nathan was around (enough to inspire a trip to get eva out of town for the weekend) and that cary was beaten by somebody who told him to "keep his hands off her". nathan had obviously been reading the tabloids (that included cary) since he found eva and gideon in the first place. it's a reasonable deduction, albeit not one that would stand up in court, but enough for a possessive boyfriend to decide to 'take care of things'.

wes bentley is the most perfect gideon ever. he's really the only charecter i am interested in giving a face to, if you understand my meaning. eva, played by me

as appauling as it might be to think of a woman staying with a man who would rape her child, let's not be naive enough to think it couldn't happen, especially in a piece of fiction. obviously he told her something horrible was happening, and she didn't believe him.  in my opinion, it does not follow gideon's charecter to want to 'save' christopher or ireland from the household. at some point he cut off all emotion associated with his family. i imagine it happened before ireland was born, during the abuse, so while she never did anything to push him away he also never formed a bond with her.

i think it is important to note that gideon never lies to eva. he does not want to decieve her in any way - he wants her to trust him completely. he would not want her to think he was sleeping with corinne, not for a second. corinne's presence at the crossfire is still a mystery, but if we take everything gideon says for truth (which i do, because this is something i think we can rely on from sylvia) we know that he had no idea why corinne was there or why she looked as she did.  and corinne is desperate to have gideon back. i think eva was correct, that gideon would have told corinne that he was only interested in friendship from her to not hurt her, but i think that corinne would take gideon's company any way she could get it. would she care why he was asking her to accompany him to events instead of eva? perhaps she would be curious, but not enough to not go.

these 2 times you're speaking of, when she walked out of the crossfire and when eva was at her apartment, corinne was supposedly trying to infer a sexual relationship with gideon. i don't think she'd want gideon to know she was trying to hurt eva like that (boy, would he hate her, then!). and i still don't think he'd approach corinne about being at the crossfire. she didn't come to see him, so whatever she was doing there was her business. he made it clear to eva in that arguement that he didn't care why corinne got manhandled and i think he was truthful in that. it was not corinne's fault they got into an arguement - that's all on eva's jealousy.

sure, he spoke to corinne of her early on - it's probably the only thing he wanted to talk about! but their post-eva discussions would be wary to include the subject. if the man you wanted was still hung up on somebody else, would you keep reminding him of her? no. even at that dinner where he was ignoring eva to talk to corinne, we know from magdalene that corinne kept trying to discuss eva by talking about herself. she's a great manipulater.

i have trouble imagining gideon and corinne discussing eva at any length. i doubt he would have ever asked her about why she left the crossfire all mussed (as you said, his possessiveness of her is long gone, so why would he care, especially with nathan on his mind, now). and i really don't think she would have called to tell him that eva came to her place. corinne isn't stupid enough to think eva means nothing to him, so she would never mention it to him. you don't win over a guy by continually bringing up the person he loves! he knew she was at corinne's because of the gps and possibly angus.Â

i don't mean to make everyone crazy, but surely sylvia had the ability to get very specific in what the characters say, so when she doesn't i ask why.  vidal seems like a likely suspect. perhaps his and elizabeth's quick marriage was in part because she brought a son to the relationship. while it would explain how gideon became majorty interest in vidal records, i have trouble believing that he would take any part in a business with his abuser. the vidal records thing has me a little baffled, as otherwise he has done a steller job of distancing himself from his family. hmm hmm hmm.

did he say specifically that he was left alone with the doctoral candidate? i believe he said that he was "left alone with him", and i dare not assume who that "him" is. i'm inclined to think it was vidal.

i don't think it's over dissecting. sylvia included several instances of people being shocked that eva was not a brunette, so there must be something to his change in taste. especially so when the first time he saw her she was dressed for a workout.  i mentioned in another thread that i think his preference for brunettes was because he was looking for his mother (corinne was simply the first embodiment of that), seeking the acceptance from her she never offered. perhaps eva remebles somebody who was good to him at some point? reaching, here, but i seek an explanation.

i haven't seen this discussed, yet (maybe i overlooked - apologies if that is the case), but i'm of the mind that gideon's prefernce for brunettes is not because of corinne, but because of his mother. i'm sure freud would agree? she denied him what he needed from a mother, and he's subconsciously seeking it from her in his affairs.  it's also crossed my mind that eva was right in the begining, that his mother did love him "too much", and that ireland might possibly be his daughter. the math with the ages, and his statements thus far, do not support that theory, but he's been so cryptic it's hard to say anything is impossible.  the truth is that eva draws conclusions based on the crumbs of information gideon and others offer, and she's not always right. i think that elizabeth's responce to eva's accusations seemed earnest, as through eva was way off base. similarly with the doctor. "you're wrong" and "you're clueless" are not how a person would react when faced with truth, especially when eva would have had the possibility to be informed by gideon, himself. if she were right they would have responded with questions about why gideon told her, or why she was bringing it up, or attempts at defending themselves, or walking away.  gideon said his mom didn't believe him, but not about the abuse, per se. elizabeth said she had him examined by 2 different doctors and found nothing, and that christopher was there as well, but is it possible that she was assuming eva to be speaking of another instance altogether? perhaps those 2 doctors she speaks of are the ones that came to the house? gideon never specifies who abused him, or even if it was that doctoral candidate that many assume, just that it was a "him". the "him"s available in his life (that we know of) would include the doctoral candidate, christopher, vidal, and angus.  i'm rambling, but my point is that we are getting this story from eva's pov, so we only have access to her truth. i'm wary to accept anything she thinks or assumes, when she is obviously not well informed.

i don't think monica or stanton conspired with gideon to kill nathan, per se, but they were surely discussing the matter. somebody else mentioned how monica was not driven into overprotective fits at the knowledge of nathan's presence. the only way i think she could have managed that kind of restraint would have been to know what types of protective measures gideon had in place for her. his stalkery ways may be far beyond what we may ever know.

how sad that this fun little thread has been ignored since 2008! people must be too busy reading books to read the thread  but i want to play . . .  1.) You're a TV or Movie character. Who are you and why? olivia pope on scandal. i am not nearly as sexy or generally awesome, but my dream of dreams was to write speeches for the president, but now perhaps i'd rather be the president's fixer/torrid lover. 2.) Favorite Villian. maleficent was one badass gorgeous dargon lady 3.) Trapped with your favorite hottie. Who is he or she? (We've got guys on here too! ) right now . . . bradley cooper (yum!) 4.) Favorite All-Time Book and why. my favorite is nearly always the book i just got done reading, but the most-read book i own would be hands-down romeo and juliet. truly embarrassing to admit. it makes me tingle. 5.) What is your favorite school subject and your least favorite? fave - english lit or art, least fave - sciences of any kind 6.) What embarasses you the most? there's this song, that is apparently well known, that i am not named after but everyone assumes that perhaps i am? at least 3x a week i will be spontenously serenaded by perfect strangers, singing a song that is not terribly flattering to the bearer of the name. 'jolene' by dolly parton - check it out. 7.) Do you have any nicknames and what are they?  jo (my preferred name due to instances mentioned in #6), bunny, love, mama (does this count?), ho-lay-nay

i'm not so concerned with HOW they got back as why angus didn't physically go to them to notify them of cary's beating? there was at least one driver who knew their exact whereabouts. obviously, if your billion-dollar employer says to leave him alone all weekend, you might do exactly that, but methinks they would have interceeded.

i believe that monica, stanton, and gideon had some sort of conversation regarding nathan after he showed up at their respective offices. the reason i believe this is because of how monica reacted the monday morning after their reclusive weekend. the "he should have known better" than to take her away with no way to call, the "what if there had been an emergency". eva played it off as there was an emergency (carey), but monica knew of nathan's presence by this point, and gideon, too.  i am confused by the universal decision to keep eva in the dark about nathan. and carey, too. she's an independant woman and they all decide to collectively treat her like a child. not that this isn't true to life, but i'm offended on her behalf.  it is my furvent hope that the detective was earnest in her speech and this murder business is over with. the story has been awesome and gripping, but much more of this will be overkill. eva is free and gideon is the one who freed her - hooray! let's move on.  i've read these 2 books 3 times, now. they've been an absolute pleasure to pick through, because i think sylvia is a master at foreshadowing. what keeps me up at night thinking (or diving into other books to distract myself) is the doctor and where he fits into this. how could he be responcible for putting a rift between gideon and his family, why is he not at liberty to discuss the details when gideon was not his patient, and why would his wife seek gideon out? does their relationship have anything to do with his profession, at all? humph! may can not come soon enough!