Some creepiness, some crime, and a charming protagonist.
A young North Carolina woman is set to inherit a fortune—but is it tied to a murder?
In Fulton’s second installment of a mystery series, Raleigh resident Beck Graham’s long-overdue visit to her grandmother comes too late. When Beck arrives at Cheyenne Graham’s Montana ranch, she finds Gran dead. There’s a bruise on Gran’s temple and a broken window, plus a “soft tuft of brown fur waves in the breeze, snagged on the glass.” When Police Chief Clay Munro arrives—“a fine specimen of manhood for sure”—and sees the body and bit of fur, he declares the death was due to Gran’s angering “The Bear.” What? The handyman boarding up Gran’s broken window chimes in: “Ain’t nobody make it once The Bear marks ’em.” Beck doesn’t buy the Bear talk; she thinks Gran was murdered. But Navy SEAL Eli Walker, a man Beck fantasizes about kissing—he has muscles in places she “didn’t know humans had”—doesn’t dismiss the legitimacy of the eerie Bear legend. Then Beck finds a note Gran wrote on the label of a bottle of essential oil that reads: “The Bear finally got me.” Beck loves oils, and she credits using them for her weight loss and for saving a dying horse that breathed in a mixture that included thyme and peppermint. Murder, men, and oils aside, Beck must decide if she’ll stay in Bear country as the heir apparent to Gran’s multimillion-dollar Three Forks Ranch. Along with the Bear theory, the story strains credulity with the facts of Beck’s inheritance. She stands to receive a fortune from a grandmother Beck hasn’t seen or heard from since the protagonist was a chubby 5-year-old. As an adult, Beck can be delightful; for example, when she meets Clay, she notes: “Those eyes run down my figure, and I tuck my tummy in a little tighter.” The book is part romance, part mystery, and part advertorial for essential oils. Two out of three are handled effectively; the oils content distracts from the other two. But oils are important to the author, who dedicates her novel to “all my ‘oily’ people.”
Some creepiness, some crime, and a charming protagonist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-949711-78-3
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Bluewater Publications
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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