Offers thoughtful meditations about love after widowhood, but needs tighter focus.
In this memoir, a widow recounts her experiences finding a new relationship and building a house in the Virgin Islands.
Stevens (Goombah Luigi’s Grandson: Memoir of a Jewish Psychologist, 2010, etc.) was in her early 60s and had been widowed for three years when she got a phone call from her old boss Nils Wessell, who’d been chairman of the humanities department where Stevens had taught psychology. They’d seen each other a few times after her husband, Sheldon, died, but Nils didn’t seem that interested. Now, he was inviting her to visit him at his home in Water Island, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. “Sheldon was special. No one could replace him,” writes Stevens. “And yet…I didn’t want to spend the next thirty years alone.” Her decision to accept his invitation led to a relationship that, despite Nils’ dithering, quickly became serious. In this novellike memoir, Stevens relates how they built a house together on Water Island while they also rebuilt trust, let down emotional walls and found happiness. The most effective and striking parts of the memoir are those that show, with great honesty and emotional precision, the uneasiness of navigating a new relationship after the certainties of a good marriage. Every early hiccup with Nils reminds Stevens that “what I really wanted was my old life. The easy camaraderie I had with a longtime friend and lover. The shared history. The secret communications.” She also shows how courage and patience can overcome such fears. The book is, however, mired in pages of Wikipedia-like tourist-guide information: “[F]ew knew that Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi or that it has a hundred and thirty miles of coast.” Much needless specificity intrudes: “At exactly 5:30 p.m. I exited from south U.S. 95 at Exit 363.” And far too much space is devoted to the excruciatingly dull details of solving red-tape problems, from obtaining building supplies to bureaucratic signatures, plus every small decision over curtains, tiles, decorating colors and so on. Few readers will care.
Offers thoughtful meditations about love after widowhood, but needs tighter focus.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493153909
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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