A lusty adventure story that entertains but only skims the surface of its midlife tribulations.
In Dye’s debut erotic romance, a middle-age woman risks it all to reconnect to her libido.
Linda Levy, a high school English teacher at an inner-city Philadelphia high school, is fast approaching her 50th birthday, and she finds this hard to accept. Linda’s life is conventional and comfortable; she has a loyal husband, a job she loves, two children in college, and a close friend with whom she plays bridge. Despite all this, she finds herself feeling restless in her life, believing that the age of 50 represents “the stepping-stone to the old-age home.” One evening after bridge club at her friend’s apartment building, Linda walks out to the parking lot and discovers that her car has a flat tire. She returns to the apartment building’s front office for help, where she encounters a titillating surprise: Fred Kunkle, the young night manager, who looks like “Brad Pitt’s handsomer brother.” Much to Linda’s astonishment, he starts flirting with her. She soon learns that’s he’s an independent filmmaker and photographer, and in their next encounter, he invites her to his apartment so that he can take her picture. Soon, what began as a harmless crush escalates into a full-blown affair. Throughout the novel, readers watch as Linda struggles to reconcile the thrill of sex with a younger man with the sweet life that she shares with her loving husband. This tension effectively drives the novel, and Dye keeps the reader in the dark about which life Linda will choose, or which life will choose her, until the very end. Meanwhile, the author also builds suspense around Fred’s identity—a web of lies that unravels as the affair escalates. The narrator’s cutesy sense of humor detracts from the suspense, however. Indeed, Linda’s frequent one-liners make for rushed comic relief during emotionally fraught moments, suggesting that she lacks the ability to fully experience the gravity of her infidelity.
A lusty adventure story that entertains but only skims the surface of its midlife tribulations.Pub Date: April 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1835-0
Page Count: 150
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
