A breezy, appealing, and sexy love story.
A medical emergency leads to an unexpected chance at romance for an outgoing Hollywood starlet and a reserved doctor in this novel.
Singer and dancer Annabelle Montclare lives for the spotlight. She gained fame for her provocative music and videos and her outspoken persona. Her career means everything to her, and she puts her drive to succeed ahead of her health. Everything changes when she is hospitalized with a ruptured ovarian cyst. Her operation is a success thanks to her surgeon, Warren Fitzgerald. Despite the circumstances, Annabelle finds Warren handsome but “a hard nut to crack.” During her follow-up appointments, she engages in teasing repartee with him, but when she asks him to dinner, he ends their professional relationship and refers her to another physician. Months later, Annabelle and Warren reconnect and realize that they share a mutual attraction. But he is concerned about Annabelle’s youth and the fact that they are at “disparate stages of life.” As their relationship deepens, Annabelle lands a role in a major film, and Warren discovers the public scrutiny that comes with dating a controversial entertainer. Warren is captivated by the effervescent Annabelle, and she sees a future with the dashing doctor, but a series of personal and professional pressures causes the couple to wonder whether their relationship can withstand the glare of the Hollywood spotlight. Famous’ (Love & Candy, 2013, etc.) novel is a spirited contemporary romance that features dynamic characters, witty dialogue, and a lively plot brimming with twists and turns. Annabelle and Warren are well-developed protagonists whose relationship develops gradually as their droll banter evolves into a passionate and life-changing connection. One of the tale’s strongest elements is the way the author adeptly balances the playful and erotic aspects of their relationship through snappy exchanges that reflect their chemistry (He: “Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re being sincere or not.” She: “Just assume I’m never for real.” He: “But then there’s the whole metalevel where you joke about whether or not you’re joking”). The story moves at a brisk pace, enhanced by subplots involving Annabelle’s burgeoning acting career and Warren’s adjustment to dating a celebrity. That said, the editing is inconsistent at times. For example, a roadie is described as carrying a “base guitar” instead of a bass guitar, and Annabelle’s gynecologist’s name is given as both “Dr. Loo” and “Dr. Lo.”
A breezy, appealing, and sexy love story.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 255
Publisher: The Miri Group
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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