A contemporary romance that will pleasantly surprise readers willing to try a new type of heroine.
Being a woman online is difficult—even for a duchess.
Daphne has just won the Eternal Reign Novelization Contest, which seems like a great achievement but, thanks to internet trolls, means her life is about to get much worse. In the world of Eternal Reign, the MMORPG she plays as Duchess Fatiguee, her inbox begins to fill with violent threats, and the company running the game refuses to help her fight back against the abuse. As she’s a struggling actress who loves playing to relieve stress and doesn’t want to leave the game entirely, she disguises herself as a new, male player in the kingdom of Duchess Uhruu. The player behind Duchess Uhruu is also a woman, and as they chat, their chemistry builds, especially after Duchess Fatiguee is deposed in a coup and Daphne spends more time in her new world. Daphne is excited to meet her crush at GeeKon but is worried that her new duchess won’t like her when she finds out she's a woman—especially as Daphne has also started questioning her gender identity. This short and sweet story is light on romance, so its real joys are in the delightful friendships throughout the book, online and off. Readers unfamiliar with online gaming may feel overwhelmed by detail, especially by the sadly realistic depictions of online hate speech, but Kudisch is an able guide to a misunderstood world. Daphne’s experimentations with gender are thoughtfully portrayed among all the geek drama, and while the happy-ever-after is nontraditional, it satisfies.
A contemporary romance that will pleasantly surprise readers willing to try a new type of heroine.Pub Date: April 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62649-559-3
Page Count: 227
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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