Not quite an award-winning stallion, but the plot gallops along at a steady pace, making for an entertaining light read.
From Golden Heart finalist Pettersen (Fillies and Females, 2011, etc.) comes the story of a poverty-stricken horse masseuse and the brash, wealthy new boss she falls in love with.
Jenna Murphy’s life is turned upside down once Derek Burke comes to town. Although she’s far from financially well-off, her job as a horse masseuse at the Three Brooks Equine Center provides her with just enough income. But when out-of-towner Derek buys out the Center, Jenna’s job and heart are both at risk. Derek decides to make some big changes, including the removal of anyone who drains company resources. Between Jenna’s lack of formal education and the lies she tells to cover her tracks, it’s little wonder she feels unnerved. It’s curious, though that she’s willing to accept the man who could possibly ruin her life. Even though she hesitates to fall in love, she welcomes his sexual advances. Her physical attraction is understandable, but letting someone so disruptive into her bed seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Raised by an abusive father and a mother who obsessed over him, Jenna has a strong desire to keep herself from falling in love and thereby repeating her mother’s mistakes. This background makes Jenna a believable character whom readers will hope can be happy; it also makes her dependency on Derek slightly odd. Falling for Derek would be a bit more understandable if he were more developed: He’s little more than a cookie-cutter hero, the handsome yet ruthless businessman who has a soft spot for the heroine. Moreover, the jump from attraction to love happens rather quickly, making it difficult to track the buildup of emotions. Fortunately, the rest of the book’s pacing is spot-on. The harder Jenna tries to hide the truth about her background and her after-hours use of the Center’s facilities, the more the reader anticipates a big conflict on the couple’s road to happiness. There are also plenty of clues to suggest that danger is lurking around the bend for the Center, and the resolution doesn’t disappoint.
Not quite an award-winning stallion, but the plot gallops along at a steady pace, making for an entertaining light read.Pub Date: May 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0987671783
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Westerhall
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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