LN Cronan

 She sees silliness like this on Facebook all the time. Something tells me she laughs about it. Certainly, she was amused during the portion of the Booktalk Nation appearance when the interviewer asked her about Corrine's unpopularity in the fan base

BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY AND ROCK STAR TRY DUKING IT OUT FOR SOCIALITE IN TIMES SQUARE. BLONDE, EX-GIRLFRIEND OF BOTH, BREAKS UP BRAWL BY KICKING BOTH THEIR B****.  by Deanna Johnson, special to the New York Post

As each day passes, the crew here is getting happier. Because we're within days now -- instead of weeks/months -- of our next GidEva feast!

 Yeah, Monica gave him a brilliant idea -- track Eva via cell phone. And Gideon's smart enough to not get caught, unlike Monica.

 Victor needs a good woman -- and needs to drop the torch for the gold-digging Monica.  OK, ladies, Victor is up for grabs as a blind date -- dinner June 7 at Tableau One.

     I'll bring Brett. Er, maybe not -- Arnoldo might not like that.  Anyone else want to join the dinner party? Friday, June 7 -- need to know how many coming, so I can make the reservation.  Gideon and Eva won't be there, though -- they're going away to North Carolina for the weekend.  Hey, if they fly down, then Angus should be free. I'll take Angus as my date!

 Buys dinner at Tableau One

 I too think the abuser, mentioned only in passing thus far and not yet by name, will emerge as a new character. We've already got a new character -- a bad guy/gal -- in Chapter 1: Deanna Johnson, girl reporter and evil brunette.  Speaking of, we do need some nice brunettes, and I hope we can get some new ones. Right now, Ireland is the only good one. Maybe Magdalene. IMHO I think has Gideon's best interests at heart and is sincerely sorry for how she treated Eva the night the two of them met.Â

 We could go all "New Eva" on spoiler-posting-would-be-book-reviewers. Serve up some serious sass, with snark for desert.

 Wow - good catch on the double entendre. Yep, at that point, Eva would have thought Gideon can f*** himself in his cars (and planes) from now on, because she was done rockin' his world in modes of transportation.  I love the part later on when Eva beamed at Raul when she found out he'd delivered the message. Hopefully, when Angus and Raul drove off together, Angus told him all about how special Eva is. A good contrast, considering Raul was the one who would have been driving Gideon and Corrine around.

   My second choice was: Sounds like something Magdalene would pull to passive-aggressively twist Corrine.

 Best private detectives and security personnel a billionaire can buy.  Probably ex elite military, retired police detectives and retired government intelligence -- all gone over to the private sector, where the money is much better. Throw some computer geniuses in the mix too, capable of hacking if that's what it takes to get results.  People who will keep their mouths shut, too, possibly suspecting their boss might have had something to do with Nathan turning up dead. The last thing they'll want is to possibly get dragged into the investigation themselves, lest they end up getting charged themselves. Even if they're innocent, the cops might not think so.

My chapter 15 pick ... given how rotten Gideon had been to Eva for days .... this is from page 262, Eva's walking home from the grocery store, ticked off that Gideon has Angus tailing her in the Bentley ... she's thinking Gideon doesn't want her as a girlfriend anymore, but is trying to make sure no one else has her either -- namely Brett. Â "As I walked home, I entertained thoughts of having Brett over for dinner instead, imaging Angus having to make that call to Gideon when Brett came strolling up to my place. It was just a quick vengeful fantasy, since I wouldn't lead Brett on that way and he was in Florida anyway, but it did the trick. My step lightened and when I entered my apartment, I was in my first really good mood in days."

Just wow -- Â So someone who managed to get an early copy of the novel Felt disappointed for her own reasons Reacts by doing something to spoil things for people still waiting patiently, readers who want to decide for themselves how much each of them likes the book. Â Sounds like something (fill in the blank here -Â Crossfire character) would pull to passive-aggressively twist (fill in the blank here - another Crossfire character). Â Filling in my own blanks: Sounds like something Christopher Jr. would pull to passive-aggressively twist Gideon.

 I think the latter -- he regarded Eva as his. When he went postal and beat Cary with a bat, he'd been ranting "keep your hands off her" -- and he was stalking her, including collecting things (even some of her trash).  If it was simply the disowned part, he'd have simply been after the $$$$ not after people. But he beat up a man he thought (because of false media rumors) was Eva's lover (Cary), and he got into the face another lover (Gideon - who actually was her lover, not simply a good friend like Cary).  Perhaps he was more freaked out about Cary because Cary lived with Eva -- Nathan would believe the pair of them were more than roommates. Whereas with Gideon, he'd been photographed a few times in public with Eva for about a week and a half, and Eva worked in Gideon's flagship skyscraper.  Nathan might have viewed Cary as the greater rival. The sicko learned the hard way the one he had to worry about was Gideon, who would stop at nothing to stop him from ever harming Eva again.

 Throwing out ideas -  Showing Gideon the pictures was meant to drive him (Gideon) away from Eva sexually -- twisted proof of Nathan claiming Eva as "his" in response to the celebrity online photos with Gideon claiming Eva. Nathan was disowned as part of what he'd done -- so part of the desire for the wealth was to re-establish the lifestyle he'd been accustomed to through age 16, when his exterior world imploded (charged, locked up and cast out). I think he actually did mean to leave the country. Monica (page 307-308) claimed to Eva that Nathan promised to leave the country. The question is -- was he deluding himself into thinking Eva would go with him -- or -- was he planning to flee as part of a rape-murder plot? The stalking, I think proved Nathan wanted more than money -- he wanted to get to Eva again, at the very least to rape her again.

I think my total number of posts might exceed 2,000 in the not-too-distant future

Waving "hi!!!!"

   The LALALALALALALALALALALA heard 'round the world

 I'll bet that snake believes that Eva had been juggling a billionaire playboy and a rock star -- and probably juggling a male model too (Cary) ... therefore ... she'd be more than willing to throw a music company executive into her stable of men.  CREEP!!!!  And you don't have a shot, Christopher. Never did. She is waaaaaaay out of your league, you conceited a*******

All you ladies trying to stay strong like me avoiding spoilers (and, agh, it is so hard) symbolically stick your fingers in your ears and repeat after me: Â LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA

 I think what happened will leave him permanently paranoid about her physical safety, and thus he's going to be very careful about her public profile. Plus, I think Angus is going to end up on permanent Eva detail while Raul takes over Gideon detail. Angus is a bodyguard, not just a driver. I'm assuming Raul is a bodyguard too.  It had purely been on impulse that Gideon blatantly exposed Eva to the world. He'd just made her his official girlfriend hours earlier. He spotted a lurking photographer near his gym. He staged that passionate kiss as a way to tell any circling males out there that Eva was taken.  For the rest of his life, he's going to be dealing with ramifications of what that impulsive move on the sidewalk unleashed. He'll not make the same mistake twice.  At best, I think he'll stick to red carpet shots moving forward. What I think is more likely, though, is he himself will back down on how much he exposes himself to the public limelight. I can see a lot of weekends spent in their North Carolina vacation home rather than out on the New York City high society social circuit.

 It always bothered me that they didn't change Gideon's last name -- left him branded with the notoriety-linked last name of Cross. He was young enough, not yet school age, that from purely record-keeping purposes, a name change would be less complicated then. Also, given that his biological father was dead, it would have been less complicated to change his name. I think not only does this indicate Gideon was thought of as second class by Vidal Sr., but also he probably didn't take the step of adopting Gideon. Vidal Sr. seemed to be set on instead siring an heir to his own name, Christopher Vidal, as soon as possible.

 Unlike the snapshot pictures, which are in specific order, Chapter 1 to Chapter 22, the Penguin countdown pictures are in no particular order. I have a feeling, based on snapshot #15, the picture of the man's hand grasping a bedsheet, it will be in Chapter 15 that Eva at last gets Gideon to tell her the full story behind his nightmares.  Chapter 15 is a particularly scary place in the past Crossfire novels. In Reflected, it's when Eva finds out Nathan was in New York and has just been found dead (plus, in hindsight later, we'd find out Chapter 15 covered the Thursday on which Gideon killed Nathan. In Chapter 15 of Bared, Gideon was begging Eva to take him back, despite the nightmares (he thought disgust is what had made her flee). When he sought her out to get her back, he'd already done something that must have scared him deeply - signed up for therapy (individual as well as couples.)

 I've some thoughts on that:  At the time, Christopher was only 5 years old. Gideon was somewhere around age 11. And it was Gideon, not Christopher, in the hands of the mental health team doing house calls to the Vidal mansion. Elizabeth may be assuming, wrongly, that if it was true there was a pedophile under her roof, he'd attack all children. The truth of the matter is that often, pedophiles have very specific obsessions about gender and age for their choice of victim. Elizabeth also isn't taking into account the lower level of reasoning skills a 5-year-old would possess when compared to an 11-year-old. Eva deduced the root of Christopher's grudge had to do with the fact Gideon got so much attention when they were younger. Plus, Christopher Jr. was raised by the same man as Gideon -- Christopher Sr. And let's admit it -- prior to Eva, Gideon kinda used women too. Christopher Jr. definitely uses women. I wonder whether Christopher Sr. was a bad male role model.