Shallow, repetitive and predictable.
Aging out of her role as “America’s Sweetheart,” TV anchor Tiana Tomlinson fights for her job and realizes she wants more.
She hates the idea of plastic surgery. But when her producers threaten to bring in a ten-years-younger co-host to revive her top-rated weeknight show, pushing-40 Tiana must consider the possibility. Her career has been her life since her beloved husband, a serious journalist, was killed seven years earlier, and he in turn had filled the void created when her family died in a horrific accident years before. But even as she campaigns for her high-profile job, Tiana is ambivalent. The news show she once anchored has become increasingly focused on celebrity gossip; she herself has made its headlines through her romance with a much-younger actor. But she has become intrigued by more serious stories. Stir in a strong, if conflicted attraction to Hollywood’s top plastic surgeon, Dr. Michael O’Sullivan, and the recipe for chick-lit romance is set. The match-up with Michael is obvious from the start (“the suddenly husky note in his voice makes my stomach do a little flip,” Tiana says), so the will-they-or-won’t-they suspense is not long sustained. By the time he shows his altruistic side, luring her on a medical mission to Africa, their destiny is clear. While not even Porter (Mrs. Perfect, 2008, etc.) can undo aging, her contemporary fairy tale finds a way for Tiana to triumph. Larding a light entertainment with actual celebrities, the author aims for real-life star power. But her simplistic approach, with Tiana constantly lamenting TV realities as if they were new, grows tiresome. Aging TV stars may be the hot new heroines—at least in books by Julie Kramer or Hank Phillippi Ryan—but Porter never gets beneath her pretty woman’s skin. Only the thinly disguised Hollywood gossip may sell this to a few readers.
Shallow, repetitive and predictable.Pub Date: July 22, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-50940-4
Page Count: 338
Publisher: 5 Spot/Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
To her usual mix of love, mystery, and passion, Roberts (Sanctuary, 1997, etc.)—author of 115 romancers in some 17 years—adds Renaissance art and a decidedly Medici-like family: the Joneses of Maine. Dr. Miranda Jones, nearly six feet with flaming red hair and a glacial reserve, is an archeometrist who specializes in the analyzing and dating of Renaissance bronze sculpture. Miranda hopes to secure a world-class reputation for herself by authenticating a 15th-century statue of the Dark Lady, one of the mistresses of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the undiscovered work of a young Michelangelo. Miranda's mother, Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones, the emotionally remote director of the Standjo art lab in Florence, has summoned her daughter from the family's Victorian cliffside home in Jones Point, Maine, to test the statue. Meanwhile, Miranda's father, equally remote, is an archaeologist who spends more time at his digs than at home. In fact, no one in the Jones family has made a successful run at marriage, a failure that Miranda and her alcoholic brother Andrew call the Jones curse. As for the statue, when it's discovered to be a fake, Miranda sets out to prove that someone stole the original. In this she's helped by gorgeous art thief Ryan Boldari (half-Italian, half-Irish), who's come to Jones Point to steal yet another bronze, which also turns out to be a forgery. Ryan's plan had been to use Miranda as a pawn, but now, naturally, he finds himself falling hard for her. While the two search for bronzes, a standard-issue romance-novel psychotic is stalking them. Most readers will twig to the killer's identity: Here, as always, Roberts's sexual tension is more compelling than her suspense. Perhaps it's time to take a sabbatical from the pink sweatshop and turn her considerable wit and narrative skills to a more original piece of work.
Pub Date: March 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14387-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
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