Erotic and emotionally charged, the nuanced narrative elevates this office romance.
A corporate merger reunites a businesswoman with her former husband in the first novel in Mann’s (Intoxicated, 2016, etc.) new series.
A trip to her local coffee shop brings Dakota Atwell face to face with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. It is Samuel Seaforth, her former husband, a man she still loves (“He was taller than I remembered, his shoulders broader and his hair blonder”). Their marriage was happy until the day Samuel’s wealthy father offered her a bribe in exchange for divorcing his son. Faced with a mother who needed cardiac surgery and a younger brother’s legal troubles, she accepted the proposal and broke Samuel’s heart. Later that morning, she is shocked to discover that his company, Infinity Enterprises, has acquired a controlling interest in her employer, Harmony Developments. Samuel has every reason to despise Dakota and fire her on the spot; however, her employment contract precludes immediate dismissal. Intent on humiliating her the way she humiliated him, he moves her to a small cubicle and assigns her menial tasks under his close supervision. Despite his desire for revenge, Samuel is still attracted to Dakota. When work on a business deal leads to a night of temptation, Dakota and Samuel must decide whether their love is stronger than the pain of the past. Mann’s erotic romance is a pleasant surprise in a crowded genre. The strongest elements of the novel are its unusual, multilayered narrative structure and solid character development. The chapters alternate between Dakota's and Samuel’s points of view, and frequent flashbacks reveal the progression of their relationship, from their initial meeting to the circumstances surrounding their divorce. It is an ambitious way to tell their story, and Mann’s risk pays off thanks to clear transitions between the flashbacks and the present-day episodes. The framework also helps to establish Dakota’s motivations for accepting the deal that ended her marriage and the haunting guilt she feels for hurting Samuel. Telling part of the tale from Samuel’s perspective offers insight into how the divorce affected him and how his lingering feelings for Dakota temper his passion for retribution.
Erotic and emotionally charged, the nuanced narrative elevates this office romance.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Ishkadiddle Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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