An unconventional love story for independent women.
After repeatedly serving as a bridesmaid in weddings that don't end up happening, a woman starts to worry she’s cursed.
Zoey Marks doesn’t believe in marriage, because she’s not sure it ever works out. At least, it doesn’t seem to work out when she’s involved. After being a bridesmaid for two brides who never made it down the aisle, she couldn’t be less interested in getting engaged herself. Especially not when she has her high-powered job running a nontraditional advertising agency with her friend Sara (one of the brides whose weddings Zoey may have cursed). But then she meets Rylan, her lifelong best friend Hannah’s cousin. Zoey quickly falls passionately in love with Rylan, enough to make her possibly think about questioning her anti-marriage stance. That is, until she’s in yet another wedding that ends before it begins. When Rylan proposes right after Zoey gets back home from the third wedding that wasn’t, Zoey turns him down, unable to promise a forever she can’t truly believe in. Wallowing in heartbreak, Zoey’s one comfort is that at least she won’t have to see Rylan again…that is, until Hannah announces that she’s getting married in Ireland, and she wants Zoey by her side. Rylan will be there, and now Zoey has to juggle seeing him, making sure Hannah’s wedding survives Zoey’s bridesmaid curse, and trying to figure out if she can commit to forever and the future she so desperately wants with Rylan. But the wedding weekend is full of secrets, betrayals, and a scheming best man, and Zoey’s afraid that both she and Hannah might not be headed for a happily-ever-after. Zoey’s narration is quick, clever, and full of zingers, but Greenberg often uses that narration to tell the reader things about Zoey’s relationship with Rylan rather than showing their love develop, which makes it difficult to become invested in them as a couple. The story is much more surprising and boldly messy than the cute cover implies, and readers who aren’t looking for a traditional romantic-comedy structure may relate to Zoey’s quest for happiness and her understanding that it can be found in places other than wedding ceremonies.
An unconventional love story for independent women.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2507-9159-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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