A satisfying introduction to a new series, featuring relatable characters and an engaging storyline.
A relationship between an ad executive and a football coach changes them both in ways neither could have imagined in this debut romance.
Sarah Beth LeClair teaches an advertising class at the University of Mississippi, but with a degree of trepidation. She’s a specialist in her field, and she enjoyed a successful career with a prestigious agency in Los Angeles until a tragic loss prompted her to return to the safety of her family home in Oxford, Mississippi. Sarah Beth drifted away from the church after the deaths of her parents, but then she renewed her commitment to her Christian faith. Although teaching is rewarding for her, it can’t quell her constant anxiety. One afternoon, football coach Jess McCoy stops by her office to discuss one of his players taking her class, and they begin a casual, if cautious, friendship. Despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, the nonreligious Jess finds himself drawn to both Sarah Beth and her faith. As their friendship deepens, she opens up to him about her tumultuous past, her tragic losses, and her anxiety. He resolves to help her overcome the latter, and their friendship turns into a romance. But after Jess receives an offer to coach a professional team, he wonders whether he should stay with the woman he loves or leave Oxford to pursue his dream. This first novel in Ferguson’s Southern Hearts series offers strong, well-developed characters and a nuanced narrative that never strikes a false note. Sarah Beth and Jess are appealing protagonists with complicated, painful pasts who draw strength from their growing friendship. Ferguson handles the subplot about Sarah Beth’s anxiety with great compassion and sensitivity. Subtle foreshadowing hints at the cause of Sarah Beth’s unease, while extended flashbacks expand her back story and offer insight into the importance of religion in her life. Ferguson builds Sarah Beth and Jess’ relationship slowly and methodically, and the story is particularly effective at conveying the positive effect that she has on him. The well-rounded cast of supporting players includes Jess’ best friend, Nick Russo; Nick’s young daughter, Katie; Sarah Beth’s brother, Mark; and her colleague, Jill Martin.
A satisfying introduction to a new series, featuring relatable characters and an engaging storyline.Pub Date: April 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9974822-0-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Southern Sun Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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