A solid historical novel with two headstrong characters.
A Regency-era romance about an orphaned young woman and the handsome nobleman who attempts to find her a husband.
Anna Colbrook watches a suitor depart from her home after her aging stepgrandfather—Alfred Sinclair, the fifth Earl of Wareton—has rejected the man’s offer to marry her. When Anna confronts the elderly man, he forbids her from marrying until after her younger stepsister, Madeline, does. If Anna attempts to marry sooner, she’ll forfeit the inheritance that her mother bequeathed to her and have no dowry. Unfortunately, Madeline is only 12 years old and Anna’s in her early 20s. After her grandfather dies, Anna remains legally bound by his rules. Thankfully, the new earl doesn’t choose to reside at the estate, and Anna finds happiness living alone with her stepsister and managing their home. When the absentee earl also dies, his successor, the young Adrian Sinclair, a reformed rake, takes up residence in the family home as the seventh Earl of Wareton. He and his family are intent on finding Anna a match, if for no other reason than to be rid of her. As Adrian attempts to find a husband for Anna, he’s surprised by her reluctance to marry. Anna’s true reason for wishing to remain single runs deeper than her uncle’s old decree; as Adrian attempts to discover Anna’s motivations, the pair argues continually. But as they grow better acquainted, they’re surprised by what they discover. Debut novelist Rue’s fast-paced narrative and engaging dialogue will draw readers in from the start. The story, told from Anna’s and Adrian’s alternating perspectives, is chock-full of Jane Austen–esque misunderstandings and misread motivations as well as stolen kisses. As the two characters attempt to secure the happiness of others at their own expense, the author sprinkles in engaging action scenes and appearances by entertaining secondary players, adding richness to the plot. The romance also contains some delightfully swoonworthy moments as well as unexpected twists and turns that add much-needed suspense toward the end.
A solid historical novel with two headstrong characters.Pub Date: June 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73239-571-8
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Blue Mermaid Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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