Throw in all the right ingredients—fashion, sex and female empowerment—blend, and out comes this frothy, enjoyable read.
Two sisters, one prim and proper, the other hip and artsy, lose and find love, and have a few epiphanies as to what makes a healthy relationship in 21st-century London.
Martha has it all, or so younger sister Eliza thinks, while looking around her own grubby Shepherd’s Bush flat. Martha has a smart Holland Park house, a dependable husband in Michael and two beautiful toddlers. Sure, Eliza has sexy Greg, who knows her better than anyone, but she’s tired of life with a knockabout musician who sells hats. She wants a man with a pension plan and a mortgage. With barely an explanation to Greg, Eliza packs up and runs to Martha. But it turns out to be Martha who’s in need of tea and comfort. The night before Michael left—he doesn’t love her, and sees no reason to waste his life for the sake of the children. Martha tries to convince him he’s just being silly—of course he’s happy! To no avail, and so the rest of the novel is Martha’s metamorphosis from uptight wife to her more authentic self, the fun woman she was before she was saddled with Michael’s expectations. Helping her on her journey is Jack Hope, sexy, rich and with just one flaw—he wants to be “naked friends” with Martha—that is, have sex, no strings attached. After ten years of marriage, this seems fine, but Eliza is furious. Not only has reliable Martha disappeared, but all the sensible men Martha is introducing Eliza to are, well, sensible. Parks’s novel breezes along (with the exception of a few too many interior monologues) until Eliza and Martha find themselves in serious emotional jeopardy—it may be too late for Eliza and soul-mate Greg, and Jack may be leaving town, just as Michael’s wanting Martha back.
Throw in all the right ingredients—fashion, sex and female empowerment—blend, and out comes this frothy, enjoyable read.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7434-9649-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Downtown Press/Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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