Gratifying emotional moments and resolutions mostly overcome some flawed storytelling.
When widow Ronny Logan comes back to Rainbow Road, the once-shy loner will be wrapped into the lives of her neighbors, including an injured serviceman and two sisters who are hoping to finally change their lives.
After her husband died, Ronny traveled the world to get over him; then, unsure of what to do next, she came home to Harmony, Texas, and settled in an isolated cabin. She likes the fact that she has only three neighbors—the Delaney sisters across the lake and Austin Hawk, who's healing from a tragic accident suffered during his Army service. Like Ronny, Austin is a loner, and the two share an immediate, powerful attraction which neither can explain; it grows when Ronny and the Delaneys, along with Austin’s childhood friend Kieran, help Austin after he’s injured again in a freak accident. Kieran is in town for a poker tournament, and Dusti Delaney asks him to help her enter, seeing it as an opportunity to win enough money to get her and her sister out of the financial hardship they fell into when their parents died. Kieran, secretly nursing a long-standing crush on Dusti, agrees to help, though the possibility of competing against each other causes some tension. Meanwhile, in the midst of hosting the tournament, Reagan Truman realizes that her lifelong love, rodeo star Noah McAllen, has begun to take her for granted, and a surprise on her doorstep makes her question whether their rock-solid relationship isn’t built on sand. Popular romance author Thomas returns to Harmony with another book that moves forward apace, visiting with favorite characters and introducing new ones fans will appreciate. Readers will root for their happily-ever-after and will be satisfied in the end, but getting there involves a lot of telling rather than showing and some character and relationship jumps that involve broad strokes rather than detail work.
Gratifying emotional moments and resolutions mostly overcome some flawed storytelling.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-425-26840-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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