by Charlene Keel Arie Pavlou ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A spicy outing that should feed readers’ hunger for romance.
The beautiful wife of a would-be congressman falls for a sexy chef in this steamy debut novel.
On the surface, Eden Bancroft seems the perfect political wife. Attractive and intelligent, she's a key part of her husband’s plan to win election to Congress. But a perfect exterior conceals a deeply dysfunctional marriage. After more than a decade together, Eden, a master sommelier, has fallen out of love with the dimwitted, selfish, and arrogant Mitchell, if she was ever really in love with him to begin with. Despite her growing disillusionment, Eden’s commitment to her three children and her financial dependence on her husband (and his wealthy mother) holds the marriage together. She hopes, at the very least, that if Mitchell wins a seat in the House of Representatives that her new duties “might add some zest to her life.” That is, until she meets the handsome chef Kaleb Stavros, for whom she feels a passion she never experienced for her husband. The two begin a clandestine romance. Mitchell, a smarmy, despicable jerk (he’s guilty of marital rape, among many other sins), remains oblivious to the affair but makes it clear he’ll do whatever is necessary to tame his restless wife and win the election. Readers should sympathize with Eden’s struggle to balance her overwhelming desire for Kaleb with the pressure to do what is right for her children. At times, however, it would be nice if she had a bit more agency. She initially embraces Mitchell to get out of a tough financial spot, and then relies on Kaleb to rescue her from a terrible marriage. But watching her fall deeply in love for the first time is enjoyable, and readers should get a vicarious thrill from the couple’s jaunts to Paris, Jamaica, Cyprus, and Jackson Hole. Foodies should also savor the mouthwatering descriptions of the delicious meals and fine wines that are served over the course of the book (at a dinner in Paris, “she had Boeuf Bourguignon and he had kidneys simmered in a delicate wine sauce”). The election night denouement strains credulity, but it remains a minor misstep in an otherwise enjoyable tale.
A spicy outing that should feed readers’ hunger for romance.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Red Sky Presents
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Robinne Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.
When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.
Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker, debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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