An entertaining love story with glamour, guns, and a Mexican accent.
A mechanical engineer falls for a mysterious man who helps her evade a drug cartel in McDavid’s debut romantic thriller, the first novel in her Border series.
Avery McAndrews flies from Denver to Zapata, Texas, for client Sam Rockforth. She’s there to perform an inspection at a Rockforth Petroleum facility. But Avery has entered an unofficial war zone for rival cartels: the Ramos family and the Contreras, each stealing crude oil and trying, sometimes lethally, to prevent the other from doing the same. At the facility, Avery has a run-in with Javier Ramos, son of the cartel boss, Diego. Before she can leave Texas, Javier has men abduct her and take her to Mexico. He thinks her billionaire client, Sam, will pay a ransom, but he also wants Avery to design a tunnel for transporting drugs. Diego’s Mexican attorney, Alejandro DeLeon Harrington, frees Avery from captivity for reasons she doesn’t yet understand. Getting her back to the U.S., however, won’t be easy, especially after Javier slaps a million-dollar bounty on her. Avery is drawn to handsome, chiseled Alejandro, who’s clearly more than a cartel stooge, and the two keep their heads down but their eyes focused primarily on each other as they fight to stay alive and get her to safety. McDavid’s story is often tense, as much of it has Avery and Alejandro dodging criminals. But their romance gets most of the spotlight, which works thanks to strong characterization. Avery, for one, is tenacious even in the most harrowing moments. Although the peril rarely lets up, some of Avery’s grievances are trivial, like having to hide out in a place with chickens or dye her red hair black (“I look like a witch!”). Nevertheless, watching the two grow close—in various ways—is delightful and perfectly suited to the narrative’s unwavering pace. There are also a few surprises, especially regarding Alejandro’s past.
An entertaining love story with glamour, guns, and a Mexican accent.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68291-939-2
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Haphazard and undemanding.
A sports agent’s first official client is the man she dumped years ago in college.
After two years of hard work as an underling, Nora Mackenzie is finally being promoted to full-time sports agent. She’s worked hard, kept quiet, and allowed men in the office to call her Mac—a nickname she hates—all to show she’s a team player and “one of the guys.” Unfortunately, her boss instructs her to sign Derek Pender, a football player coming off an injury, who happens to be the man she heartlessly dumped in their senior year of college. Derek signs with her for revenge, seeing it as his opportunity to pay Nora back for callously breaking his heart eight years earlier. He insists she be at his beck and call: answering his emails, running his errands, cooking dinner for his dates. He also refuses to let her explain why she broke up with him without warning or explanation. Nora feels she has no choice but to acquiesce to Derek’s humiliating demands, since she’s worked too hard to let him ruin her dream job. She hopes he’ll thaw and they might become friends, but Derek’s bad behavior is designed to hide the fact that he’s still in love with her. Nora’s characterization is uneven, veering between anger at how she’s treated in the male-dominated field to immature bickering and bantering with Derek. Although Adams likely meant for Derek and Nora’s interactions to have an enemies-to-lovers vibe, the characters instead seem juvenile and stuck in the past. The novel is fueled by a string of tropes—second chance romance! married in Vegas! only one bed!—each randomly deployed to keep the book going despite thin characterization and wan plotting.
Haphazard and undemanding.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593723678
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
