Kendrick brings her signature breezy style and witty charm to another poignant and romantic love story.
When her former fiance marries someone he's just met, a woman who's used to playing it safe throws caution to the wind on a visit to Black Dog Bay, the Delaware beach town deemed the best place in America to get over a breakup.
Brighton Smith has crafted the perfect, safe life. While she once dreamed of taking over her grandfather’s jewelry business, those hopes were dashed when her free-spirited mother ran it into the ground. Learning early to be responsible, she became an actuary and is engaged to Colin, who’ll be an attorney as soon as he passes the bar exam. When a silly argument escalates into a huge fight, Colin asks for his ring back, then heads out of town for a study session. Brighton decides to visit Kira, a college roommate who just moved to Black Dog Bay. When the two meet up at a local wine shop, Brighton is introduced to Jake Sorenson, Black Dog Bay’s resident sexy, rich bachelor and “designated rebound guy for all the newly single women.” Brighton feels the tug of attraction but ignores it until Kira has to take a call from a client at the same time Colin calls to tell her he’s met someone else and married her. Tossing off her sensible armor, she accepts Jake’s offer of a drink, which leads to a late-night flight to Vegas and a quickie marriage. Stunned by her choices, she's further astounded when Jake encourages her to enjoy the moment while it lasts. Brighton knows hopes and wishes are a bad bet, so she should nip them in the bud before they take hold. But somehow, her one night of risk seems to be leading to everything she ever wanted. Can any of it last?
Kendrick brings her signature breezy style and witty charm to another poignant and romantic love story.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-451-47418-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: New American Library
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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