Part thriller and part mystery, this delightful story of friendship also celebrates sex, love, and family.
Three Black women who occasionally sit at the same lunch table at work are thrown together and become fast friends when their male colleague is murdered.
Venus McGee, Draya Carter, and Jackie Benson are all strong women who are leaders within their separate departments at Baltimore-based Billings Croft Construction, yet they couldn't be more different from one another. Venus is known as a calm and in-control senior project manager who has been passed over for promotions in favor of Rufus, an incompetent, petty, womanizing jerk; she holds herself accountable for every small choice she makes so that it does not reflect poorly on her father, a city councilman. Draya has a much different reputation: She asks no forgiveness for having slept her way into a job as the company's fiscal director, and she wields her sexuality as a tool to help get what she wants. Jackie, the third in the group, is the facilities manager at the firm’s building, a hard worker who is quick to defend boundaries and struggles with loneliness after her family shunned her for being a lesbian. When Venus gets into an argument with Rufus at the office Christmas party, the three woman head back to Venus’ apartment to commiserate on his extreme unpleasantness. The next morning, Rufus summons Draya frantically to his house for work help and she arrives to find him dead. As a Black woman in Baltimore, she does not trust what the police will do to her if she reports Rufus’ murder, so she calls Venus. What follows are a wild few weeks as the women try to protect themselves from the police investigation, figure out who murdered Rufus, and work through their opinions on potential, current, and former lovers as they become not only fast friends, but also family. This is Homicide: Life on the Streets meets 9 to 5 meets Bridgerton in a story that screams to become a TV series.
Part thriller and part mystery, this delightful story of friendship also celebrates sex, love, and family.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-3112-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A charming dual-timeline romance about learning from past mistakes.
In Yarros’ latest romance novel, a young woman hires a handsome but infuriating writer to complete her late great-grandmother’s half-finished book.
After her marriage to a Hollywood producer ends in high-profile divorce, 28-year-old Georgia Stanton returns to her childhood home in Colorado. When she arrives at the house where she was raised by her great-grandma—the famous romance author Scarlett Stanton—she finds her mother, Ava, lying in wait. Georgia is in possession of the only unfinished manuscript that her deceased relative left behind, and her own mom wants her to sell the rights so they can get some cash. Georgia succumbs to the pressure and enters a deal in which another author will finish the book’s second half. The manuscript tells Scarlett’s life story, including how she found, and lost, her one true love. Georgia feels strongly that the finished novel must reflect the true events of Scarlett’s life, as difficult as they may have been. Unfortunately, the publishers hire Noah Harrison, a stubborn writer at the height of his career, who has his own fictional vision for the novel’s ending. As Noah and Georgia butt heads, each of them researches Scarlett’s history in England during World War II. As they learn more about Scarlett and Jameson Stanton, the fighter pilot she loved, Georgia and Noah must navigate their own increasingly complicated relationship. With two equally engrossing storylines, this book will draw in even seasoned romance readers. As the story jumps between past and present, the author also alternates present-day perspectives between Georgia and Noah, moving deftly between her characters’ distinct voices. The relationships are well developed, and the love that Scarlett felt for Jameson is especially palpable. Along with the sweetly romantic themes, the book explores several heftier topics, including personal ambition, grief, family discord, and self-esteem. The story has a few digressions that do little to advance the plot, but the main characters are sufficiently engrossing that readers will want to stick with them to the end.
A charming dual-timeline romance about learning from past mistakes.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68281-566-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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