Personal drama and historical tidbits combine nicely for a quick and entertaining read.
This second volume in Braun’s trilogy continues exploring the hidden histories of guests at a California bed-and-breakfast, now under new ownership.
Eighty-year-old interior designer Annie Parker has just completed her first year as the proprietor of a seven-cabin B&B that she bought on impulse while visiting Lake Arrowhead and recovering from a broken marriage. She’s been working on a long-term redecorating project for her most lucrative client, Grayson Underwood, an elegant, wealthy part-time resident. She also meets Carrie Davis, a stylish older woman who grew up in Lake Arrowhead and returned after a painful divorce to care for her elderly mother; she becomes not only a new customer for Annie, but a new friend, as well. Carrie’s mother left the lake house to her, and she’s ready to sort through decades of family keepsakes and begin redecorating—a project that unexpectedly reveals her mother’s secrets. Meanwhile, Annie and Noah Chambers, a local construction contractor, have become a couple, although neither has fully committed to the relationship, which results in jealousy and conflict. Noah believes that Grayson is interested in Annie romantically, and Annie worries that Noah’s new client, Bunny Bryant, has amorous intentions. Following the format established in the series opener, Annie and Carrie alternate narration in a story in which the cabins serve as an intersection point. Local history surrounding the Tudor House, a popular local venue for weddings, events, and musical productions, plays an important, surprising role in Carrie’s history and adds an intriguing element to the narrative; in the 1920s and '30s, it was owned by an infamous mobster and was a speak-easy retreat for Hollywood luminaries: “There were photos of Bugsy Siegel helping a woman out of a car, others of well-known actors coming up to the mountains, including Jack Benny and Jimmy Durante." Annie’s story, as in the first volume, contains an overabundance of decorating details, including schematic drawings of rooms she’s redesigning, but this time Braun places greater focus on the more engaging issue of Annie’s challenging relationships.
Personal drama and historical tidbits combine nicely for a quick and entertaining read.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 9781647046323
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Marble Creek Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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