A triumphant series launch with an appealing couple that’s sure to garner return readers.
A college student becomes drawn to an enigmatic man whose startling secret may be putting her in mortal danger in this supernatural-infused debut romance.
Twenty-something Gwen Adams hasn’t had a serious romantic relationship in several years. This may change when she meets Alexander Prescott, with whom she feels a connection. Alexander notices it, too, but he has his eye on Hannah Kinsley, a senator’s daughter and Gwen’s chum at Verona Beach Community College in Florida. He believes it’s his fate to be with Hannah, as she’s a dead ringer for his former love, Eva. But he can’t ignore his fondness for Gwen, who soon begins dating her close friend Kyle “Ky” Harper. When Alexander signs up for college courses to be near Hannah, he winds up in her acting class, which Gwen is likewise taking. Unexpectedly, he and Gwen earn romantically linked roles in a play, sparking steamy rehearsals and unmasked envy from Ky. But Alexander has a secluded past and is covertly working on a “mission” (details initially unknown). He suspects someone of stalking his family, including his billionaire entrepreneur father, Eli. Unfortunately, he also fears his association with Gwen could make her the culprit’s eventual target. Though it’s apparent the Prescotts are supernatural (Alexander refers to humans as distinct from his family), Westbay’s series opener centers on the couple’s romance. This involves mutual ogling, but the story gradually explores the engaging characters’ rich backgrounds. Hannah, for one, has a reason for “stealing” Gwen’s potential dates while Gwen endured a tragedy in high school. Intimate moments between Alexander and Gwen are tantalizing and, most impressively, offer little physical interaction. For example, the two, during a scene dramatization, get very close—Alexander staring “ravenously at her lips”—before the director/playwright interrupts. Readers learn early what Alexander is, but his specific origin and the “resources” he wants remain a mystery until later. The final act accommodates plot reveals and the bulk of the action, ending on a blistering cliffhanger.
A triumphant series launch with an appealing couple that’s sure to garner return readers.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9996065-0-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quadratic Pie Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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