A poignant, hopeful look at how the past informs the present and future.
In this second-chance romance, a woman revisits old traumas—and the one who got away.
Andrea Scott has it together—mostly. The 28-year-old New Yorker works in marketing; is close with her mother and her best friends, Emma and Charlie Loughlin; and has fabulous sex with a man named Harry Stengel. But Andi’s job is unfulfilling, and Harry happens to be her boss and also married. When Andi receives a phone call that her estranged father, Ryan, has died, she’s forced to face the past she left behind. During her junior year of high school, Andi moved in with her dad while her mother took a temporary position overseas, and the teen soon became a victim of Ryan’s alcoholism and resulting abusive behavior. Andi got through the tumultuous year thanks to loyal new pal Krystal Rivera and handsome football player Corey Johnson, whose friendship with Andi soon turned into a passionate romance. Andi and Corey were prepared to be together forever until a series of betrayals during their freshman year of college led to a heavy breakup, and they haven’t spoken since. When Andi returns to her dad’s suburban hometown of Fairford, she discovers that he’d been sober for many years prior to his death. He started a successful home design business with Corey, now a single dad who’s still carrying a torch for Andi. Can Andi reconcile her painful family history and make her way to a bright, new beginning? (Corey had “always been a balm for my soul.”) Or is the past too much to overcome? Alternating the chapters between Andi’s life-changing high school years and her current reality, Dembowski crafts a lovely, sympathetic hero, realistically flawed due in large part to the trauma she experienced as a young person. The plot is carefully woven, dropping breadcrumbs to a satisfying final reveal where no individual is at fault. Though everyone’s actions have consequences, a happily-ever-after may still be on the horizon. Andi and Corey are a believable couple whose teenage chemistry has the potential to translate into a strong adult relationship, but only if both are willing to work on it.
A poignant, hopeful look at how the past informs the present and future.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948051-97-2
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.
A TV producer and a detective try to stop a strange pattern of young women disappearing.
In “Auclair, Loooziana,” disillusioned detective John Bowie reluctantly meets in a bar with Beth Collins, producer for the true crime show Crisis Point. She needs to interview him about the disastrous case of the missing Crissy Mellin, but he refuses. The teenager disappeared three years ago on the night of a blood moon and hasn’t been found, but a suspect hanged himself in jail after signing a confession. Case closed, says John’s boss. But John is convinced that their prisoner could not have been guilty, and he’s deeply upset at his failure. “The Mellin case messed up your life,” Beth tells him. She persuades John that Crissy’s disappearance is the latest of a series that happen on the night of a blood moon, the colloquial term for a total lunar eclipse. “It’s going to happen again,” she predicts. And wouldn’t you know, another blood moon is coming in four days. Tick, tick, tick. Beth’s boss at Crisis Point insists on airing an update on the case, but Beth knows the show is going to get it wrong, and its reputation will be ruined. Meanwhile, there’s an electric sexual tension between Beth and John that the author toys with nicely—do they, or don’t they? The answer plays out in detail more than once. The characters are fun if easy to pigeonhole: the detective angry at his failure, the honest (and beautiful) outsider eager to do her job but susceptible to love, the hero’s corrupt (to say the least) boss, and the ogre who carries out said boss’s dirtiest deeds. Even John’s dog, Mutt, plays a small but vital role. When John found him, he’d been “a flea-bitten hide wrapped around a skeleton that whimpered.” Little plot devices are easy to spot, like the phone that rings at a crucial moment, or the handgun that John places in Beth’s hand for her protection. Does Chekhov’s guideline apply here? The romantic angle leavens the dark theme, and readers will have plenty of incentives to turn the pages.
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781538742983
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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