A sexy, splashy love story with sweet depths.
In Dodd’s romance novel, a commitment-wary mermaid performer and a real estate developer with a rakish reputation meet in Vegas and then fake a relationship to aid their careers.
After hauling a bulky suitcase off the carousel at the Las Vegas airport, 32-year-old redhead Coral Triton barrels into 39-year-old “blond Adonis” businessman Jameson “Jamie” Standard, who’s heading toward his limo driver. The couple banter, and as she walks off, a huge bottle of personal lubricant falls out of her suitcase; Coral, who regularly dons a mermaid costume, notes that it’s “crucial for that tight tail squeeze.” This flirtatious meet-cute is conveyed in alternating “Coral” and “Jamie” point-of-view chapters, as is the rest of the novel. The couple are both staying at the L’Atelier hotel; they meet again there and have a one-night stand that Coral labels “amazing” in a note she leaves behind. However, the narrative has already tipped readers off that Coral and Jamie are destined for further encounters: She’s been hired by the L’Atelier’s manager to perform in and help craft an aquarium show, and he’s a Boston-based real estate developer visiting his sister Jocelyn, who’s coincidentally Coral’s new boss. He’s there to wait out the reaction to a recently published “Modern Day Rakes” article in Boston Commons magazine, which features him and could jeopardize his deal with an upright Boston Brahmin client. While in costume, Coral interacts with bedazzled observer Jamie, and the resulting social media buzz gives Jocelyn the idea that they should pretend to have a relationship to publicize the hotel and improve Jamie’s image.
Dodd showcases plenty of hot lovemaking sequences in this second novel in a series about bachelors from a Boston-based real estate development firm. Jamie’s impressive pleasure-her-first gymnastics are particularly celebrated, with Coral marveling at one point at how he’s “the man who’d pulled some sort of ninja sex move to land on his knees while staying between mine.” The novel also effectively highlights the role that social media plays in modern life. Coral naturally leverages it to promote her made-for-Instagram career, and the slightly older, less social media–inclined Jamie is initially rather bemused to find himself tagged as “#brunchdaddy” and “#PrinceEricOnTheProwl.” He stars in his own YouTube video near the end of the novel in what turns out to be his best move of all. Dodd gives this novel’s attractive couple plenty of appealing emotional dimension. Jamie realizes that the “moment [he’d] started wondering how to be a better man, [he] met a woman who wasn’t the least bit interested in changing [his] ways.” Coral’s skittishness regarding relationships is effectively detailed and dramatized as being the result of a difficult childhood; the novel even includes a memorable detour to visit Coral’s mother, a boyfriend-obsessed woman who can’t seem to resist disparaging her daughter. Although the novel has many surface charms—including riffs on professional mermaid travails, such as dealing with weird fans called “merverts”—romance fans will relish the substantive adult relationship that forms between the two undeniably appealing main characters.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798986288086
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Sugar Beaver Books, LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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