Despite a wishy-washy ending, this has all the requisite angst, heaving chests and body heat to satisfy romance aficionados....
Returning to her MsAdventures at Sea series, McKellar (A Port of No Return, 2006, etc.) delivers another steamy, if formulaic, romance/adventure, sure to rip a few bodices.
Twentysomething Quinn Anne Carrigan has had it with life on land, especially with her ditzy roommate, Cyndi, and Cyndi's druggie boyfriend. Her loins still aching from her last sea encounter aboard the Zephyr, where she was bedded by the lean and muscled Jamaican Noah, Quinn sets out on yet another adventure on the high seas, this time as the cook aboard the Mexican luxury yacht Vanora. Quinn is teamed with Marcus, a landlubber friend Quinn finagles onto the crew; Marnie, a hard-bodied lesbian; and Hank Somers, a former Zephyr crewmember. Rounding out the team is the Vanora's oversexed and controlling capitan, Diego Reyes. Quinn finds herself constantly sparring with Diego, who, when not making crude overtures, takes great pleasure in demeaning her. On the verge of quitting, Quinn begins an affair with the Vanora's rakish, millionaire owner, Rafael Santiago, which she's determined to hide from Diego, who, Quinn is convinced, is harboring a dark secret. Soon enough, Diego's past catches up with the ship crew, and they are held hostage at sea by drug boss Luiz Montoya. Things go from bad to worse when Diego and Luiz abandon Quinn and the others to drown aboard a scuttled Vanora. Thanks to a radio message, Quinn's old Zephyr friends Dr. Felix Templeton, Chip and Noah, come to the rescue. But this unexpected reunion leads to an unwelcome love triangle and all its emotional turmoil. With drug lords in hot pursuit and the story's heroine forced to choose between two dreamy (and, oh yes, lean and muscled) suitors, McKellar, in true series fashion, concludes with an open-ended finish that feels like a bit of a cheat.
Despite a wishy-washy ending, this has all the requisite angst, heaving chests and body heat to satisfy romance aficionados. McKellar's fans won't be disappointed.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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