A highly organized and detailed book with a predictable storyline.
A corporate consultant thinks she has it all: good life, perfect partner, fast track to the placement she wants in Paris. But when she's sent on a long-term assignment to her hometown, Seattle, and must live with her parents, she realizes that she doesn’t.
Pencil-skirt– and Manolo-wearing Dylan Delacroix—a “Black Katharine Hepburn”—lives in Houston with her methodical, gorgeous, blond-haired boyfriend, Nicolas. He's just as organized as she is, and she finds the routine soothing after a childhood spent with no boundaries. But when she’s sent by her employer, Kaplan and Associates, on assignment to Seattle for a few months and Nicolas finally meets her family, her worlds collide: Her well-to-do artistic parents, Bernice and Henry, and her sister, Neale, are appalled by Nicolas’ disrespect toward her and them. And as Dylan tries to help Technocore, the troubled company with which she's been placed, founder Tim Gunderson seems ready to undercut her at every turn. Throw in her best friend, Stacy, who's Filipina; Mike, the gorgeous Latino boy across the street who's getting a Ph.D. in early childhood development; Linda and Patricia Robinson, his two moms; and Deep and Brandt, Dylan's new best friends at the office, and this story has an extremely full slate of characters who together draw Dylan back into the messy, unscheduled, opinionated, overwhelming life she thought she’d left behind. Readers ready to settle in to a long, detailed read about Dylan’s burgeoning interest in Mike, low-stakes neighborhood squabbling between the Robinson and Delacroix parents, and Dylan’s efforts to improve productivity at a “profit-sinking black hole” of a tech company that seems to have an endless supply of money will enjoy this lengthy tome. Some, on the other hand, might find its insistence on heavy-handed explanations and descriptions off-putting.
A highly organized and detailed book with a predictable storyline.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2927-8
Page Count: 347
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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