Intelligent escapism with heart.
A tale of identical twins and not-so-identical islands.
When blue-blooded Boston designer Eleanor Roxie-Frost divorces electrical contractor Billy Frost, the rift consigns their 17-year-old identical twin daughters to separate islands. When they're home from college, Tabitha spends the summers with Eleanor on Nantucket and Harper lives on the Vineyard with Billy, and they visit the opposite parents for holidays. Now the twins are 39 and haven't gotten along in years. For reasons that will remain obscure until the end, Tabitha blames Harper for the death of her premature son, Julian. Neither Tabitha nor Harper has ever married. Tabitha had daughter Ainsley and, later, son Julian out of wedlock with her long-term boyfriend, Wyatt (now married to someone else and effectively out of Ainsley’s life). Tabitha, who has lived her entire adult life in Eleanor’s thrall, occupies her mother’s carriage house and manages the ERF boutique on Nantucket, a stodgy purveyor of preppy resort wear on the verge of going bust. Harper, whose past includes menial jobs and a brush with the law, is now a total pariah on the Vineyard: she'd been having an affair with Billy's doctor, Reed, which is discovered by his wife, Sadie, on the night Billy dies. The fun accelerates when Eleanor, Ainsley (now 16), and Tabitha attend Billy’s memorial service only to have Sadie toss a flute of champagne in Tabitha’s face. Then Eleanor, who could never handle champagne, breaks a hip. For complicated reasons, the twins end up trading islands, with Tabitha heading to the Vineyard to renovate Billy's house and then sell it while Harper goes to Nantucket to look after her niece. Hilderbrand makes the most of the complications caused by twinship and small island worlds: Tabitha’s most recent ex, Ramsay, approaches Harper and decides to pursue this less uptight look-alike, and Tabitha, after some initial difficulties occasioned by Harper’s reputation, falls for master builder Franklin—who is Sadie’s brother. The most poignant scenes feature Ainsley, whose teen angst is quelled by Harper’s nurturing. The romantic relationships seem tacked on to satisfy the demands of the genre, but this beach read doesn’t shy from the grittier side of all that sand.
Intelligent escapism with heart.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-37519-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Not Woods’ best, but a smoothly written, beach-themed story with a happy ending helps forgive the weaknesses.
When Samantha, an established-yet-struggling actress, comes home to act as maid-of-honor in her sister’s wedding, the family unabashedly tries to pair her with the best man, Ethan, her teenage crush and now a local war hero.
Samantha is the oldest Castle, and while her two sisters found true love in quick succession, she’s in New York with a struggling acting career and no Mr. Right on the horizon. Coming home to Sand Castle Bay, N.C., for youngest sister Emily’s wedding, Samantha is continually thrown in the path of Ethan Cole, local football champion–turned–war hero. Samantha had a huge high school crush on Ethan but is surprised to learn he lost a leg in Afghanistan, and his then-fiancee abandoned him soon after. Spending time with him now, Samantha realizes what a wonderful man he is, but the association is tainted by the humiliating lengths her family is going to in order to get them together. And while Ethan is a great and honorable man, his post-war romantic experience has left him gun-shy and determined to avoid relationships. At a crossroads in her own life, Samantha has to decide whether she’s going to stay in Sand Castle Bay or go back to her sputtering career in New York—and what her hopes are with Ethan. The two navigate insecurities and misunderstandings as they fall in love and fight for their happily-ever-after. Woods' latest is slightly off-key. Great writing and deft characterization can’t save a thin romantic conflict, and the more Ethan clings to his “I’ve given up on love” position, the less heroic he becomes. Some secondary storylines offer similarly shrill undertones that denote a disturbing lack of communication, unrealistic expectations and waffling with annoying justification. Still, in the end, love conquers all in satisfying ways for everyone concerned, and this ties up a few loose ends for the trilogy.
Not Woods’ best, but a smoothly written, beach-themed story with a happy ending helps forgive the weaknesses.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1446-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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