A fast-paced and engaging historical and romantic fantasy with strong protagonists.
A 17th-century Scottish highlander finds romance and intrigue after traveling to present-day Las Vegas.
In February 1692, the hospitality of Braeden MacDonald’s clan, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, is betrayed by a man named Robert Campbell. Braeden’s grandmother hands him a pocket watch and tells him to think of his mother and wish to travel to the meadows. After wishing on the watch, Braeden finds himself in an unfamiliar place. He is greeted by Tessa McTavish, who believes he is interviewing for a security job at her family’s Albannach Resort Hotel and Casino. She takes him to her father, John, who tells him he is in Las Vegas in the year 2016. John knows about the watch and offers to help him in exchange for protecting Tessa. John doesn’t trust Tessa’s fiance, Danny Madden. Despite her misgivings, Tessa is attracted to the ruggedly handsome Braeden and the feeling is mutual. It soon becomes apparent that John’s concerns are justified. When Danny mysteriously dies after breaking off the engagement and an employee disappears after witnessing a theft, Tessa and Braeden begin to suspect the connection is the ancestor of an enemy from Braeden’s past. Vale’s (A Turn in Time, 2015, etc.) latest novel is an enjoyable romantic fantasy highlighted by likable protagonists and clever flourishes of magic and historical detail. The brief but effective opening chapter sets the stage for the Glencoe Massacre and Braeden’s grandmother’s urgent effort to save him by giving him the watch. The contrast between Braeden’s 17th-century Scotland and Tessa’s 21st-century Las Vegas is striking, and Vale captures the humor in the highlander’s attempts to navigate his new surroundings, from riding in an elevator to dining in a fine restaurant. Tessa is a strong and resourceful romantic foil for Braeden. Their relationship unfolds gradually as she struggles with a fiance whose intentions seem insincere. The leads are bolstered by a strong supporting cast of characters, including Niall Campbell, a charismatic magician who seems to know a lot about Braeden’s clan and the watch.
A fast-paced and engaging historical and romantic fantasy with strong protagonists.Pub Date: June 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9970064-5-2
Page Count: 178
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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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