Shalvis has created a love story romance fans can’t help but root for and grounds it in an affable community they’ll adore.
After losing her parents as a young teen, Pru Harris has spent her time and resources making amends for a tragedy she feels responsible for, which is why she can never fall for her intoxicating new neighbor Finn—except that she does.
Pru loves her life, mostly. She’s a captain for a San Francisco tour boat, she's rescued a dog who adores her, and she’s just moved into a new apartment that’s opened up her social life in a way she never hoped for. Her new circle of awesome friends includes pub owner Finn O’Riley, and despite a blazing attraction between them, Pru is determined to keep him at arm’s length, since she has a secret that connects them through a tragic accident that left her guilt-ridden and willing to sacrifice almost everything to help its victims. But thanks to a series of clumsy events that force Finn and Pru together, their relationship zooms past friendship, leaving Pru dazed, in love, and uncertain as to how to come clean about their shared past. Yet the longer she waits, the more untold secrets become trust issues. Shalvis begins a new series that revolves around a close group of friends and a fountain with a reputation as a wish-granting matchmaker. The concept is fun, the friends are engaging and good-natured, and the romance is sexy and touching, so readers will likely overlook the fact that the conflict is a little thin and almost completely created by Pru’s intense selflessness and misplaced guilt mixed with an inability to be honest and straightforward, then exacerbated by Finn’s odd inability to overlook her one misstep when she’s otherwise perfect for him. Which, in the end, makes it pretty easy to overcome.
Shalvis has created a love story romance fans can’t help but root for and grounds it in an affable community they’ll adore.Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-244802-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
A dynamic start to a series with a refreshingly original premise.
After a horrible affair implodes her life, a young woman travels to North Carolina for an inheritance, meets a sexy firefighter and two half sisters she didn’t know she had, and decides it’s time for a life-changing move.
Avery Keller believed her mother’s claim that she didn’t know who Avery's father was. In truth, her father knew about her, which makes her feel unwanted and resentful when she finds out about it after he dies, despite the inheritance he leaves her. Traveling to Magnolia, North Carolina, to claim it, she meets her two half sisters, who also have tangled feelings toward their father. Her inheritance consists of some heavily mortgaged buildings in downtown Magnolia, so Avery stays in her sister Carrie’s apartment while the sisters decide how to handle the properties and Carrie cleans out her father’s mansion. The apartment’s landlord, Gray, is the sexy fireman she bickered with at a gas station on her way into town. Every day Avery lingers, she grows closer to Magnolia, her sisters, Gray, and his daughter, softening her determination to leave. She doesn’t have anywhere to go, anyway, since her successful life in San Francisco had been derailed by an affair with a deceitful married man. As her relationship with Gray grows emotionally and physically intimate, it threatens his narcissistic ex-wife just as he hopes to gain sole custody of his daughter. The first full-length novel (A Magnolia Reunion, 2019) in the Magnolia Sisters series introduces the daughters of a renowned artist whose star had faded, highlighting his complicated relationships with them and with his community. Major’s characters and small-town romance worldbuilding are unique, engaging, and emotionally compelling. Avery and Gray’s romance is complex, but the Magnolia backdrop adds dimension and texture to the story.
A dynamic start to a series with a refreshingly original premise.Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-488-05664-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
A smart, sexy romance for readers who thrive on girl power.
In star-studded Hollywood, a blossoming romance between two talent agents grinds to a halt when their agencies merge and there’s only enough room for one of them.
Evie Abbey and Carter Aaron have the ultimate meet-cute when they both show up solo to a couples' Halloween party thrown by mutual friends. As the only single people in attendance, they bond over the awkwardness of their situation and the coincidence that they’re both dressed as characters from Harry Potter. Since they both know how demanding an agent’s schedule can be, they try to keep things platonic, until they experience one mind-blowing date. But there’s no morning-after glow once they arrive at their offices Monday morning to learn that their agencies have merged and the two of them will be working together until their contracts are up and a decision can be made on who stays and who goes. Though Evie and Carter do their best to act as a team, Evie’s frustration at the boys’ club atmosphere that emerges turns their workplace competition into a full-blown battle of the sexes. Carter is the boy next door, with an infectious sense of humor, while Evie is a fearless, feminist powerhouse. Her struggles as a modern woman, having to work twice as hard as a man for the same job, endure being called “girl” and “kiddo,” and exhaust herself over remaining assertive yet still approachable, elevate the book from a romantic comedy to a deeper tale about trying to have it all in a world that can be unforgiving to what’s often seen as the fairer sex. The romance is deliciously tense, as readers will be begging for Carter and Evie to just kiss already. Filled with high jinks, pop-culture references, and grin-inducing flirtation, it's truly a romance for the 21st century.
A smart, sexy romance for readers who thrive on girl power.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6581-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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