Middling for this venerable, well-regarded series.
Just what Lt. Eve Dallas needed to make Christmas in the 2050s complete: a visit from the wicked witch who made her life hell when she was in foster care.
The holiday season kicks off with Santa opening a window on an office party and taking a header onto the pavement 36 stories below, killing a bystander in a hard landing. It was drugs, his shocked coworkers admit to Lt. Dallas of New York Police and Security Department, who promptly collars the dealer and thinks she’s ready for anything. Well, one thing she’s not ready for is Trudy Lombard, the foster mother who terrorized the eight-year-old Eve back in Texas until she ran away. Now Trudy’s made the journey to the big city, her son Bobby and his accountant/bride Zana in tow, and she wants nothing more than to coo over her former charge, now world-famous as a homicide dick (Origin in Death, 2005, etc.), and incidentally to put the squeeze on Trudy’s billionaire husband Roarke. It seems that Trudy’s been following her protegée’s career with rapacious interest and is ready to go public with her every misstep on the way to success and celebrity. Roarke tosses her out with brusque counterthreats, of course, and when Eve pays her a call the next day to repeat the brush-off in person, she finds Trudy beaten to death in her hotel room. The setup promises to land Robb’s answer to the Jetsons in hot water—but it doesn’t, because they both have ironclad alibis and nobody believes they’d hire a hit. So the case at the center of the futuristic trimmings and the connubial romance comes down to nothing more weighty than figuring out whether Trudy’s relatives got rid of her, or whether the perp was some other survivor of her unique brand of nurturing who decided enough was enough.
Middling for this venerable, well-regarded series.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-15328-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2005
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
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.
When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.
Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker, debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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