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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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