by Sarah Andre ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2016
Solid romantic suspense with strong characters and surprising plot twists.
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A successful businessman uncovers dangerous family secrets and a long-lost love in this latest novel from Andre (Locked, Loaded, & Lying, 2015).
Devon Ashby grows up in Chicago, the eldest son of a prominent but emotionally distant businessman, Harrison Wickham. When Devon is 9, he discovers the body of his mother. Her death is ruled a suicide, but he’s convinced she was murdered. Determined to establish his own identity, he leaves home at 18 with $53 and bus tickets for himself and his high school sweetheart, Hannah Moore. Their intense relationship is the lifeline both need to cope with difficult families. He is devastated when Hannah chooses to stay to care for her dying mother. Twelve years later, Devon returns to make peace with Harrison and collect his trust fund. He discovers a family in shambles and the estate damaged by a mysterious fire. He’s shocked to discover Hannah’s company has been hired to restore the Wickham art collection. Their reunion sparks a long, simmering attraction that’s complicated by his company’s plans to tear down her apartment building. But when a second death occurs in the Wickham family home, Devon must face the ghosts of the past to protect himself and Hannah. Andre’s novel offers appealing lead characters and tightly plotted romantic suspense. Tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome, Devon could easily turn into a caricature of his ruthless and calculating father; however, carefully integrated flashbacks reveal the pain and heartbreak that drive his motivation to succeed in business and life. He meets his match in Hannah, a young woman with an equally tragic family background determined to build her own business and care for her elderly aunt. Their renewed attraction is instant but fraught with complications, including his development plan for Hannah’s neighborhood and engagement to another woman. Although their romance forms the cornerstone of Andre’s narrative, additional storylines involving the fire at the Wickham estate and Harrison’s sudden engagement to a mysterious woman are also well-developed despite a climax that’s slightly over the top.
Solid romantic suspense with strong characters and surprising plot twists.Pub Date: May 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975607-0-1
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Beach Reads
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Sarah Andre
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by Sarah Andre
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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