An intelligent, involving story of a Regency Cinderella finding a new life and true love.
In Michaels’ Regency romance, a young woman becomes an unexpected heiress.
Young August Summer is languishing in a low-intensity relationship with handsome curate Henry Fitzgerald, who seems to be in no hurry to marry her. Into this uneventful life comes an unexpected bombshell. From his deathbed in the countryside, Lord Bolton instructs his solicitor, Samuel Brooks, to seek out his nonmarital daughter—August. Lord Bolton has never seen the girl, but he fears he will not rest in peace if he doesn’t acknowledge and care for her, so he plans to install her at his ancestral home of Linfield Hall, 30 miles outside of London, right alongside his other children, Charles and Rosamund. He intends to establish her in his world by, among other things, settling an enormous fortune on her (society loves an unexpected heiress, he quips). Samuel is initially appalled by the arrangement; he’s doubtful that such a drastic change will be in anybody’s best interest. Nevertheless, he carries out his commission and contacts August, who’s astonished—and naturally worried about how her half siblings will react to her arrival at the hall. Her sudden vulnerability affects Samuel more than he expected. When readers initially meet him, he’s opposed to the idea of marriage, but he finds his feelings for August steadily blooming even though his ambivalence is only deepened when his task expands to acclimating August to the rarefied atmosphere of the very rich. Their growing attraction is complicated by her half brother’s decision to consign August to the care of her aunt, a dowager duchess dogged by rumors of her own.
The novel is a welter of plotlines and classic Regency tropes. Michaels dives straight into some of the best-known romance conceits, from the Cinderella aspects of August’s sudden rise from poverty to the oddball relationship with an unconventional older character to the confirmed-bachelor-finds-his-true-love device. Michaels imbues these storytelling elements with verve; the book’s narrative drive is strong even in its opening moves and only grows stronger as the tale builds. The main characters are all drawn with a clear, vibrant energy, and even the book’s villains, including, to an extent, August’s half brother, are given a refreshing complexity. Michaels’ strongest gift is pacing. The book jogs along from ball to dinner to carriage ride, and even the scenes in which characters pause and talk manage to contain a good deal of plot furthering. There are darker plot points along the way—Michaels doesn’t shy away from some of the uglier aspects of her time period—but these moments fall away. And although the basic architecture of that plot is very straightforwardly simple—“going from the governess to member of the ton was no easy feat” neatly sums up the bulk of it—it’s pursued with a zest that makes for easy, pleasant reading, all moving with propulsive certainty to pretty much exactly the climax that seasoned Regency readers will expect.
An intelligent, involving story of a Regency Cinderella finding a new life and true love.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73514-013-1
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Mildred Press
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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