A vivid, creative—though slightly far-fetched—romantic suspense novel.
When a Washington coastal resort that unwittingly plays host to an international smuggling ring comes under siege, the manager has to sort friend from foe.
Kellen Adams’ life is a trail of secrets, and even she doesn’t know what happened for a full year of it. That missing memory is the line between her past as a helpless, abused wife and her more recent past as a tough, skilled Army officer. Her present consists of working as an assistant manager at Yearning Sands Resort. January is off-season, so owners Leo and Annie Di Luca take a vacation. As soon as they leave and Kellen is in charge, a corpse is found on the property, creating a domino effect of violent events that indicate a smuggling ring is using the remote shoreline to bring stolen artifacts into the country; it’s hard to tell whether it’s a patron or an employee who’s running the show. With a handful of potential suspects and a younger Di Luca sent in to help with security, Kellen has her hands full, but the stakes are getting higher. Maximilian Di Luca makes her uncomfortable, and the guest who claims to be an author is clearly hiding something. But so is Kellen. She knows she’s in danger, but when threats from the past and present intertwine, it’s hard to tell which is worse. Dodd weaves popular characters from her Virtue Falls and Bella Terra series together, which will delight her fans. However, while she brings her typical intelligence and inventiveness to the plot, there’s a bit too much going on, and a couple of twists strain credibility.
A vivid, creative—though slightly far-fetched—romantic suspense novel.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-14436-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The jaws are those of a shark which makes quick work of a pretty young woman on the Long Island shore (Amity) where the disaster is kept quiet in the (financial) interest of the town's summer rentals. This is no longer possible after the next victim—a youngster—and police chief Brody is wrongly blamed for not closing the beaches sconer. He has other troubles — namely a restless young wife who remembers better days playing country club tennis and she is not immune to a visiting ichthyologist, the only one fascinated by the local shark. The finale entails some ugly, lashing action against the big one that's been getting away and all of it is designed to jolt that maneating masculine readership who probably won't notice that it ""should of"" been better written.
Pub Date: Jan. 18, 1973
ISBN: 978-0-345-54414-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1973
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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