A lusty journey back to Lindow Castle with a few dead ends on the way to a deeply felt romance.
The fourth installment of a Georgian-set but very modern romance series that explores the theme of reputation versus reality.
Lady Boadicea “Betsy” Wilde is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Lindow. Her mother, the duke’s second duchess, ran away with a Prussian count when Betsy was a baby. To ward off even a hint of her mother’s debauchery, Betsy tamps down her wilder impulses and presents a demure and perfectly polished image during her first season. She attracts dozens of suitors, proving the naysayers wrong when Lord Thaddeus Greywick, a future duke with a sterling reputation, proposes. The trouble is that Thaddeus doesn’t set her heart racing like a certain “evil-tongued aristocrat with a dark soul and a penchant for drink.” Lord Jeremy Roden has been hanging out at Lindow Castle for months, recovering from a disastrous military campaign in America and coping with PTSD. He lounges about guiltily in the billiard room, drinking too much whisky, making wisecracks, and generally proving himself unfit for polite society after a terrifying flashback episode in Vauxhall Gardens causes him to black out for an entire week. The bickering twosome cannot resist each other, their banter thrumming with wit, passion, and heart. Jeremy’s frank admissions of lust ratchet up the tension for Betsy. The characters, including the snobbish duke to whom the title refers, his spirited mother, and Betsy’s wise Aunt Knowe, are endearing and memorable. But James’ (Born To Be Wilde, 2018) depiction of recovery from PTSD falls flat, as does the one-dimensional villain whose machinations throw an unnecessary barrier in the way of lovers whose journey to self-revelation and acceptance stands on its own.
A lusty journey back to Lindow Castle with a few dead ends on the way to a deeply felt romance.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-287782-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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