The team who write under the pseudonym of Cynthia Victor (Only You, 1994, etc.) now join the army of romance writers coupling love with serial murder. Commercial artist Lainey Wolfe, based in Manhattan, covets the life of best friend Farrell Cole. While Lainey toils away drawing cutesy characters like ``Matilda and Mommy'' and ``Patsy Pony,'' Farrell lives with her prosperous lawyer husband and their two swell kids in a picture-perfect home in Connecticut. What more could a girl ask for, thinks Lainey, than glowing fireplaces, a closetful of cashmere dresses, and the aroma of boeuf bourguignon cooking in the kitchen? But, in truth, Farrell is bored with suburban life and longs to recover her adventurous youth. With that in mind, she tries an afternoon as a call girl at a local hotel—a departure from the straight and narrow that leads to disaster: The Coles are found dead in their bed, apparent victims of carbon-monoxide poisoning, and Lainey, through a prearranged agreement, becomes guardian of their children. Though never one for commitments, she moves to Connecticut and begins the difficult switch from single careerwoman to single mom, with two grieving children to care for. She's not helped much by Farrell's sexy brother Penn, a successful TV producer who drinks too much and who's staying in the guesthouse. Penn and Lainey find their fights punctuated both by sexual tension and growing affection. But in romance, no one can live happily ever after while there's a killer loose on the home front. Though the reader knows from the start that the murderer is an overweight neighbor who bakes great cakes, Lainey and her lover are forced to follow an uninventive trail to piece it all out. Much more engrossing than their last outing; still, some attractive characters and believable relationships are done in by an amateur mystery filled with fortunate coincidences and tired clichÇs.
Pub Date: March 25, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-94033-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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