Oddly wimpy and not much fun.
Mayer and the usually irresistible Crusie (Bet Me, 2004, etc.) stumble in this romantic action film of a novel about a woman trying to direct a romantic action film set near Savannah, Ga.
After the previous director succumbs to a heart attack, Lucy Armstrong agrees to direct for the shoot’s last four days the movie on which her ex-husband Conner is stunt coordinator, mainly because she wants to spend time with her sister Daisy, also working on the movie, and five-year-old niece Pepper. Lucy is worried about Daisy, who seems drugged out, and Pepper, who seems lonely (and unbearably, unbelievably precocious). Lucy learns from her assistant that an action ending has been tacked on to the romantic comedy. Although the ending, requiring dangerous stunts, makes no sense, she is pressured by the movie’s mysterious Irish backer Finnegan to finish filming. Meanwhile, Conner says he wants to get back together, but Lucy—wisely—no longer trusts him and finds herself more attracted to the leading actor’s new stunt double, a Special Forces macho warrior named J.T. Wilder. Lucy does not know that J.T. has been assigned by the CIA to track down Finnegan and the Russian mobster to whom he owes 50 million dollars’ worth of Mexican phallic sculptures. J.T. wins Pepper’s heart when he gives her a Wonder Woman Doll. It doesn’t take him much more to win over Lucy, with whom he’s soon having torrid sex. Meanwhile, scary things are happening that may or may not be accidents. Throw in a one-eyed pregnant alligator and a sniper sharing the nearby swamp and the danger quotient rises, especially when Pepper is kidnapped. Despite plenty of blood-and-guts violence, there’s not much mystery to pull the reader along.
Oddly wimpy and not much fun.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34812-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
A fun and fast-moving read, and better edited than many of Laurens’ past efforts. Highly recommended.
A straight-laced Glasgow businessman is drawn back into clan politics and a romance with a woman from a neighboring estate.
Laurens (By Winter’s Light, 2014, etc.) returns to her popular Cynster series with this romantic mystery set in mid-19th-century Scotland. Thomas Carrick is looking for “the right sort of wife for a gentleman of the type he intended to become—a pillar of the wealthy business community.” But a plea for help from farmers on his uncle’s estate causes him to abandon Glasgow suddenly. His wastrel cousins are taking advantage of their father the laird’s lingering illness to plunder the clan’s coffers. Thomas is determined to set things right, even though it means encountering the witchy woman on the next estate, Lucilla Cynster, who has held him in thrall for many years. Lucilla, on the other hand, has been waiting for Thomas to figure out that a marriage between them has been preordained by the Lady, a local deity embodied by Lucilla’s mother. She believes Thomas is her consort, chosen by the Lady to be the future caretaker of Lucilla and her people. Together, they work to solve the mystery of recent foul deeds on Carrick land and have fabulous sex around the edges. The book falls prey to the annoying tics common in Laurens’ prose (can you really sigh inwardly, catch your mental breath, mentally blink or rock back on your mental heels?) but is a fairly successful example of cross-genre experiments in which classic mystery and historical romance and even fantasy tropes are combined. The solution to the mystery is wonderfully unpredictable, and both Thomas and Lucilla are flawed and likable characters.
A fun and fast-moving read, and better edited than many of Laurens’ past efforts. Highly recommended.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1782-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Entertaining and unpredictable; Reid makes a compelling argument for happiness in every life.
Reid’s latest (After I Do, 2014, etc.) explores two parallel universes in which a young woman hopes to find her soul mate and change her life for the better.
After ending an affair with a married man, Hannah Martin is reunited with her high school sweetheart, Ethan, at a bar in Los Angeles. Should she go home with her friends and catch up with him later, or should they stay out and have another drink? It doesn’t seem like either decision would have earth-shattering consequences, but Reid has a knack for finding skeletons in unexpected closets. Two vastly different scenarios play out in alternating chapters: in one, Hannah and Ethan reconnect as if no time has passed; in the other, Hannah lands in the hospital alone after a freak accident that marks the first of many surprising plot twists. Hannah’s best friend, Gabby, believes in soul mates, and though Hannah has trouble making decisions—even when picking a snack from a vending machine—she and Gabby discover how their belief systems can alter their world as much as their choices. “Believing in fate is like living on cruise control,” Hannah says. What follows is a thoughtful analysis of free will versus fate in which Hannah finds that disasters can bring unexpected blessings, blessings can bring unexpected disasters, and that most people are willing to bring Hannah her favorite cinnamon rolls. “Because even when it looks like she’s made a terrible mistake,” Hannah’s mother observes, “things will always work out for Hannah.” The larger question becomes whether Hannah’s choices will ultimately affect her happiness—and it’s one that’s answered on a hopeful note as Hannah tries to do the right thing in every situation she faces.
Entertaining and unpredictable; Reid makes a compelling argument for happiness in every life.Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7688-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
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