A lively debut with a charming community setting and a slightly drawn-out slow-burn romance.
An event planner and an astronaut fake a relationship for the holiday season in this romance debut.
Amerie Price has a lot on her plate. Her relationship recently ended, she was let go from her job, and she’s trying not to let her worries about her parents’ health overwhelm her. To add even more stress, Amerie is trying to get her own event-planning business off the ground and is desperately searching for her first client. Vincent Rogers is an astronaut, which in Houston feels almost like a pickup line, but he’s genuine...except for the fact that he’s been lying for months to his family about having a girlfriend. Vincent and Amerie first meet at a coffee shop when she spills caramel latte all over him. Then, luckily, he turns up at the coffee shop again just in time to help her save face. Her ex is there with his new girlfriend, so Amerie, thinking quickly, introduces Vincent as her new boyfriend. Then Vincent’s sister shows up, and when he introduces Amerie as the girlfriend he’s mentioned, Amerie impulsively says she’d be happy to attend the family’s black-tie New Year’s Eve party. Amerie has no intention of going, but Vincent offers to make it worth her while by letting her live rent-free in his extra bedroom for a few months so she can save up money for her new business. Vincent’s contacts could also prove useful to Amerie in building a roster of clients. All she has to do is play the part of his doting girlfriend until the new year. Amerie is snarky and acerbic in the best way, softening up in the face of Vincent’s more cheerful, golden retriever–like energy. Amerie and Vinent’s romance is quite a slow burn, and sometimes their communication styles and personalities feel disconnected. The space industry in Houston is a fun setting, though, leading to delightful space puns and general nerdery.
A lively debut with a charming community setting and a slightly drawn-out slow-burn romance.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593640227
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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