An engaging second-chance romance.
A job interview leads to an unexpected offer—and a potential lover—for a widow reinventing her life and career in this debut novel.
Alesandra “Andie” Halzer is devastated when her husband of 25 years, Nick, dies unexpectedly following routine surgery. Two years later, Andie interviews for the position of director of special projects for Johnathan “Jack” Devlan’s company, Devcor Diversified, Inc. Jack is impressed with her credentials, expertise, and strong work ethic. Although Jack selects another candidate for the position, he has a different job in mind for Andie. Jack wishes to pursue new business opportunities, but he does not want the attention of eligible women to interfere with that goal. He needs someone to pose as his date at various social events, and Andie is his ideal candidate for the role. Intrigued but cautious, Andie agrees to Jack’s terms, including the stipulation that neither becomes emotionally attached. Over the course of three months, Andie accompanies Jack to award luncheons, wine tastings, and dinner parties. What starts as a business arrangement soon turns personal when Jack discovers he has fallen in love with Andie. With time running out on the contract, Jack begins a campaign to convince Andie to stay in his life forever. Capen’s book is a fresh and sharply written contemporary romance featuring dynamic characters and a unique and surprisingly tender love story at its center. Andie is an appealing heroine whose concerns about re-entering the workforce after her husband’s death are relatable. In a well-drawn scene, she confronts her fears about interviewing for the position with Jack’s company (“What was I thinking? I’m too old for this job. But how do they expect someone to have all that experience without being at least thirty-five or forty”). Jack is a hard-driving businessman who has avoided emotional entanglements since the death of his wife, Maggie. Although Andie and Jack’s relationship begins as a contractual arrangement, a loving connection gradually develops, grounded in part by their shared grief over the deaths of their spouses. That said, there is an inconsistency in the rendering of Jack’s first name. It is spelled “Johnathan” and “Jonathan.”
An engaging second-chance romance.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-885297-03-7
Page Count: 377
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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