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SELFIE

A worthwhile if imperfect trip to Bluewater Bay, where agonizing grief is transformed by unconditional love.

A closeted movie star can’t grieve the loss of his old love until a new love shows him the way.

Lane’s (Lollipop, 2016, etc.) contribution to the multiauthor LGBTQ Bluewater Bay romance series offers her trademark angst and emotional sensuality. After a year of using alcohol to numb his sorrow over the tragic death of his longtime partner, closeted movie star Connor Montgomery posts a drunken video that nearly ends his career. At the urging of his agent, Connor leaves his Malibu beach house full of painful memories to take a role in a paranormal TV series filming outside Seattle. Connor is instantly attracted to his local assistant, Noah Dakers, whose mixed African-American and Native American heritage gives him the dark good looks Connor can’t resist. Lane averts a cliché by writing Noah as a mature and centered 20-something, not a star-struck local, but his instalove for Connor coupled with his flawless character detract from the romance. The sex scenes are explicit (including several kinks) and important, since the bedroom is the only place where Connor can mute the voice of his dead lover, opening himself to the present moment. Connor’s movement out of desolation is slowed by his reluctance to examine his lost relationship and by his dawning realization of the costs of being closeted. While affecting, it feels a little too slow at times. Noah’s lament near the end of the novel could have opened it: “You have like…an iceberg of damage in you, and you keep trying to think it’s all fine, but I keep wrecking myself on bigger and bigger pieces.” Without a clearer understanding of his motives, readers may wonder why Noah is willing to stay in the water.

A worthwhile if imperfect trip to Bluewater Bay, where agonizing grief is transformed by unconditional love.

Pub Date: April 18, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-62649-385-8

Page Count: 338

Publisher: Riptide

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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