An easy, sweet read for people who like happy endings.
Running the bagel shop he co-owns with his father keeps Josh Goldberg busy, but he feels restless and constrained by the lack of dating prospects on tiny Hartsbridge Island. Could wounded veteran Michael Baldwin be the something more he's been looking for?
Returning home from military service after having been shot would be hard for Michael even if he weren't juggling PTSD, speech problems, and his family's political aspirations. Growing up in the public eye, he's used to living in the closet, with brief forays into anonymous sex with strangers in bars. He spent most of his life doing what his politically ambitious parents expected him to, until he joined the Air Force as a way of reclaiming his identity. After being shot, he was isolated in rehab away from them, but a return to civilian life means that he must relearn to deal with his family. Luckily, he has Kaylee, a service dog trained to keep him safe and help him cope with panic. Josh is attracted to Michael as soon as he sees him, but he doesn't know if Michael is single or gay. His instant crush slowly evolves into a friendship based on understanding, mutual respect, and desire. Together, the two men learn to navigate their ways through faulty communication, self-esteem issues, and very difficult family situations. But when a candid photo threatens to out Michael, will they be able to weather the storm? Ultimately, there isn't a lot of suspense in this story, but it's worth reading for the slow build, the yummy descriptions of breakfast food, and the sweet flirtation that unfolds between Michael and Josh. The characters are all funny and likable, and if there's room for more nuance and development, well…there's nothing wrong with a bit of fluff either.
An easy, sweet read for people who like happy endings.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62649-464-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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