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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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