A solid, sexy thriller that should appeal to romance and crime-drama fans alike.
A debut novel mixes elements of mystery and romance to tell the story of a detective who must stay focused on her work in the heat of a passionate and unexpected encounter.
Isabelle “Isa” Carte is an ambitious and steel-nerved career woman, as the reader learns from the very beginning when she reacts with indifference to her long-term boyfriend leaving her for another woman. She is too preoccupied with her job as a detective to have time for romance. But when the body of her ex-boyfriend’s new lover is found in the river in Winnipeg, with Isabelle’s name written in lipstick on her forehead, she cannot deny that she is deeply disturbed. Encouraged by her work partner, Hank Curtis, she decides to hide out with her German shepherd, Jack, in her family’s lakeside cabin in rural Ontario for one week. Frustrated that she cannot play an active part in the investigation, her attention is soon diverted when she meets a rugged mountain man named Alec Reed. She’s initially suspicious of the handsome stranger (“She should try to figure out who Alec Reed was and what he was all about, if nothing else, to rule him out as a suspect....For her own safety, she should probably learn more about who he was and why he was here”). When a passionate relationship between them unfolds as quickly as her stalker continues to kill, Isa is torn between her work and her newfound love. The fiery combination of zealous romance and thrilling crime mystery makes the novel an absorbing and fast-paced read. Told in the third-person omniscient, the story flits among the perspectives of Isa, her new lover, and the killer. But as gripping as the murder mystery plotline is, so is the tragic family history of Alec, which is revealed to the reader long before he tells Isa. The author often uses the appropriate analogy of a storm to describe her protagonist’s unrelenting tumult: “nature seemed to be cleansed after yesterday’s storm…so much peace and beauty around Isa, but so much turmoil going on within her.” In addition to the rounded character development, there are moments of pure, uncensored sensuality that should give fans of romance and erotica welcome goose bumps. But the subsequent conclusion to the investigation will likely leave readers disappointed.
A solid, sexy thriller that should appeal to romance and crime-drama fans alike.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-7661-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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