Psychodrama, romance and mystery mingle, but not cohesively.
In Coll’s debut novel, a brilliant mathematician’s childhood tragedies pave an ominous path for her work and marriage.
Cathryn Barrington-Weiss is only 8 years old when her father dies, her mother commits suicide and her brother goes missing. After a bout in a psychiatric hospital, young Cathryn goes to Germany to live with her new guardian, family friend Dr. Isaac Schlosser. The girl keeps quiet about the conversation she overheard between her father and a mysterious man right before he died, and a note her mother wrote explaining everything. Cathryn’s aptitude for math and science leads to her life’s work in quantitative psychologistics, a concept based on Asimov’s fictional science of psychohistory. While launching her project, affectionately named “little isaac,” Cathryn falls in love with the tenacious, controlling Carl von Wahrberg, an older man about to serve time for shady financial dealings. Her first and only night with him leads to twins and a new life together post-incarceration, in a town where people are not quick to forgive notorious Carl. A whirlwind of events leaves readers wondering what to anticipate. Coll is skilled in dropping enticements and dotting the tale with divergent characters such as Dr. Alison Burke, a fling from Carl’s past, and Therese, the nanny in love with Cathryn. But a multitude of unrealistic episodes impede the flow. Belief is hard won upon seeing the twins, who don’t meet their father until they’re 9 years old, fervently embrace him on sight. Readers may also find it difficult to trust Cathyrn’s unrelenting love for a man she spent only hours with 10 years ago. Coincidences—such as running into Carl a decade after their one night together the moment she arrives on his turf, ready to put her past to rest—contribute to a loss of confidence in an otherwise engaging narrative. Also, characters and plotlines disappear for long intervals: Little isaac, the brainchild Cathryn shrouds in security measures bordering on paranoia, is ignored for lengthy stretches, creating a disjointed effect in the storytelling. But a few surprises and a gratifying ending save face in this story of uncertain genre.
Psychodrama, romance and mystery mingle, but not cohesively.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466382176
Page Count: 290
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Haphazard and undemanding.
A sports agent’s first official client is the man she dumped years ago in college.
After two years of hard work as an underling, Nora Mackenzie is finally being promoted to full-time sports agent. She’s worked hard, kept quiet, and allowed men in the office to call her Mac—a nickname she hates—all to show she’s a team player and “one of the guys.” Unfortunately, her boss instructs her to sign Derek Pender, a football player coming off an injury, who happens to be the man she heartlessly dumped in their senior year of college. Derek signs with her for revenge, seeing it as his opportunity to pay Nora back for callously breaking his heart eight years earlier. He insists she be at his beck and call: answering his emails, running his errands, cooking dinner for his dates. He also refuses to let her explain why she broke up with him without warning or explanation. Nora feels she has no choice but to acquiesce to Derek’s humiliating demands, since she’s worked too hard to let him ruin her dream job. She hopes he’ll thaw and they might become friends, but Derek’s bad behavior is designed to hide the fact that he’s still in love with her. Nora’s characterization is uneven, veering between anger at how she’s treated in the male-dominated field to immature bickering and bantering with Derek. Although Adams likely meant for Derek and Nora’s interactions to have an enemies-to-lovers vibe, the characters instead seem juvenile and stuck in the past. The novel is fueled by a string of tropes—second chance romance! married in Vegas! only one bed!—each randomly deployed to keep the book going despite thin characterization and wan plotting.
Haphazard and undemanding.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593723678
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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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