An engaging cast of characters grapples with themes from family legacies to social media marketing while the romance between...
A rude sword maker clashes with the spunky socialite who has been sent to drag him into the 21st century.
Portia Hobbs’ hard-charging parents can’t understand why she prefers acquiring graduate degrees and internships to joining the family business in New York. When she wins an internship to work with a master swordsmith in Scotland, Portia knows it’s a perfect way to put her art history background to good use. Where her parents see flighty selfishness, Portia sees opportunity and excitement. Her new boss, Tavish McKenzie, is a taciturn silver fox with a healthy skepticism of modernity. He’s gruff with Portia, who nevertheless manages to wield her social media and marketing savvy to raise Bodotria Armory’s profile. Portia is a charming blend of bravado and insecurity, a woman whose summer in Scotland will reveal her innate worth even if her skills are not the kind her family can appreciate. A brusque British artisan falling for a spoiled, spunky American is a familiar trope, but Cole (A Princess in Theory, 2018, etc.) invests it with complexity by giving Portia not just vulnerability, but a journey of self-discovery that includes strong female friendships. Another well-known romance trope, secret royalty, gets the same treatment. Tav’s mother was a Chilean refugee when she began an affair with his biological father, whom she left after he inherited a dukedom. Tav had always known the story, but he thought of his mother as a victim of a powerful man; learning now that she'd made her own choices, he has to make sense of a new origin story while grappling with an abrupt status shift from artisan to aristocrat. While Portia and Tav’s characters are irresistible and their culture-clash repartee is genuinely witty, their romance seems abrupt. A continued friendship with benefits seems just as likely as a happy-ever-after for these two, and while their relationship might eventually develop into something lasting, readers might appreciate a cameo by “Maid Freckles” and “#swordbae” in the next installment of the series, just to be sure.
An engaging cast of characters grapples with themes from family legacies to social media marketing while the romance between a gruff swordsmith and his unorthodox apprentice is more parry than attack.Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268556-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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