An engaging novel about the loves that define our lives.
An adventurous researcher returns to her childhood home and must navigate relationships with her brother, her ex-fiance, and a potential new lover.
Maeve Donnelly has been interested in sharks ever since she was bitten by one as a 12-year-old and survived. Now an adult, Maeve is a marine biologist and more comfortable with sharks than she is with people. At the end of a research trip, Maeve is drawn to Nicholas, a fellow researcher, and invites him to meet her in Mozambique for her next expedition. Yet when she returns to her childhood home at her aunt’s hotel in Florida, where she and her brother moved after their parents died in a private plane accident, she finds unresolved family and romantic relationships waiting for her. Maeve learns that her less successful twin brother, Robin, has had a novel accepted for publication, and it's loosely based on a broken engagement in Maeve’s past. Further, Maeve’s ex-fiance, Daniel, is now the hotel's chef. Before Maeve can decide whether to move forward with Nicholas, she must address her lingering connection to Daniel, which is no easy task given that the two haven’t spoken since Daniel confessed an affair to her. To complicate matters, Daniel’s precocious 6-year-old daughter, Hazel (who was born of his affair), now lives with him after the untimely death of her mother. Hazel is taken with sea creatures and invites Maeve to be a member of The Shark Club with her. Maeve’s professional life is also challenged as an illegal finning operation has moved into the area and is targeting local sharks. Taylor’s debut novel paints a fascinating portrait of sharks and a woman who loves them, with the sweet, burgeoning relationship between Maeve and Hazel as its anchor. The romantic relationships never feel quite fully realized, however, as Nicholas’ presence is too fleeting to endear the reader to him, which makes Maeve’s dilemma of whether to be with him or Daniel seem more symbolic than anything. Considering that the novel is told in the first person, at times Maeve’s thoughts and motivations are also surprisingly hidden both from herself and the reader. There is an interesting cast of secondary characters, such as Maeve’s aunt and brother, and the scenes depicting Maeve’s intellectual and emotional ties to sharks are captivating, especially as the illegal finning operation becomes an urgent local issue that forces her into activism.
An engaging novel about the loves that define our lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2147-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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