Impulse by Catherine Coulter

[A P Bullard]

Impulse is an engaging story of lies, betrayal, sex, and crime. It had me interested from the first page and, while I figured out part of the "who dunnit", there was a surprising twist that I hadn't seen coming.

The majority of the male characters seem to be very similar - creepy, misogynistic, entitled, and cold. The women had different personalities, though I would have loved to see if Paula matured more. She seemed a rather flat, one-sided character who annoyed me to no end. The main character, Rafaella, definitely proved herself to be strong, mature, and extremely bright. I know I would not have handled those circumstances nearly as well as she did.

The action was definitely fast-paced, and I was at risk of getting paper cuts from turning pages so quickly. There *is* an attempted rape scene, one that I thought would go there but didn't, and one that was spoken about. That is something would-be readers may want to consider before reading. I didn't find it triggering, but it definitely had me anxious until it completely played out.

Some of the dialogue (On Marcus' part) in the sexual scenes comes across as creepy to me. Sometimes, it was like he was feeling her at an auction, or something. It made me uncomfortable, though he did far less of that later on. But, earlier, it was creepy and unrealistic.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fast-paced, suspenseful "who done it?" novel. It was a lot of fun to read, and I definitely cared about the main characters and what happened to them.

3.8/5 stars