An entertaining, down-to-earth heroine makes this predictable romance a good vacation read.
In Omasta’s (Chances and Choices, 2014, etc.) contemporary romance, a Key Largo woman sets out to change her life, and soon meets a seemingly perfect man.
At a rummage sale not long after her 42nd birthday, Fern Burns picks up a copy of the self-help book The Secret, which she’s been meaning to read ever since she heard Oprah Winfrey talk it up. “This book is going to change my life,” she writes in her diary. Her life is mostly fine; she enjoys her friends and beautiful Key Largo, but admits it would be nice to earn more money and get her own place. She wouldn’t turn down a hot romance, either. Her job and housing soon improve, and although her first post-Secret dating attempt doesn’t work out, a new, sexy man eventually appears: Brody MacDonald, nicknamed “Mac.” The stranger has the “biggest yacht in the harbor,” and wields “the elusive black Club member card,” so Fern figures he must be a billionaire. Mac woos her with thoughtfulness, wonderful dates and stellar sex. But he’s got a secret, which soon leaves Fern with an important decision. The reason for Mac’s elusiveness will be so obvious to readers that it’s hard to believe that the reasonably intelligent Fern couldn’t figure it out. (She doesn’t always put two and two together; for example, she’s been meaning to get around to buying The Secret for many years, when she could have easily gone to the library all along.) Still, Fern is fun company, and possesses a lively, humorous, likably down-to-earth voice that keeps the tale moving briskly. Some lines are laugh-out-loud funny: when describing her roommate coming home with her boyfriend, for example, Fern writes that they “barely even had time to walk across the room to her bed before I heard him start ramming into her. I wanted to shout, ‘Way to pre-heat the oven, Dipshit,’ but I somehow managed to refrain.” Omasta also makes great use of her Florida location, adding lots of local culture and color.
An entertaining, down-to-earth heroine makes this predictable romance a good vacation read.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500224974
Page Count: 240
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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