This sexy, lighthearted romp brings the series to a satisfying close.
Deveraux (For All Time, 2014, etc.) saves the best for last in the final installment of the Nantucket Brides trilogy, in which a physical therapist rehabilitates a wounded military veteran in a haunted house.
When Hallie Hartley unexpectedly inherits a home on the island of Nantucket, she knows she’ll have to move quickly to keep it away from her spoiled stepsister, Shelly, who steals Hallie’s identity to try to claim the house for herself. Hallie hastily honors Shelly’s arrangement with veteran Jamie Taggert, who had planned to move into the Nantucket home with the woman he thought was Hallie for round-the-clock physical therapy to escape his meddling family. While Hallie insists that her massage therapy techniques are strictly professional, the innuendos practically write themselves: “It’s been a tough day and I took my anger out on you,” Hallie says to Jamie. “Why don’t you take your clothes off and let’s start over?” Legend has it that a pair of beautiful ghosts named Hyacinth and Juliana still haunt the house with the aim of uniting people with their true loves. Hallie believes she's already met hers, and she hopes that her childhood friend, Braden, will take his mother’s advice and propose to her. Braden, however, prefers lanky models, and curvy Hallie isn’t his type. Braden arrives at the house assuming that Jamie will feel the same way, which makes it all the more gratifying when Jamie says he likes Hallie’s curves, proving that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Hallie is still torn between the two men when a bevy of Montgomery-Taggert cousins from previous books invade the house for a wedding celebration, giving her blessings and warnings that muddle her feelings but thankfully don’t muddle the plot. Behind the scenes, the two scheming ghosts intervene with a whimsical touch, inspiring heartfelt revelations as both Hallie and Jamie heal old wounds to find new love.
This sexy, lighthearted romp brings the series to a satisfying close.Pub Date: June 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-54185-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
To her usual mix of love, mystery, and passion, Roberts (Sanctuary, 1997, etc.)—author of 115 romancers in some 17 years—adds Renaissance art and a decidedly Medici-like family: the Joneses of Maine. Dr. Miranda Jones, nearly six feet with flaming red hair and a glacial reserve, is an archeometrist who specializes in the analyzing and dating of Renaissance bronze sculpture. Miranda hopes to secure a world-class reputation for herself by authenticating a 15th-century statue of the Dark Lady, one of the mistresses of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the undiscovered work of a young Michelangelo. Miranda's mother, Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones, the emotionally remote director of the Standjo art lab in Florence, has summoned her daughter from the family's Victorian cliffside home in Jones Point, Maine, to test the statue. Meanwhile, Miranda's father, equally remote, is an archaeologist who spends more time at his digs than at home. In fact, no one in the Jones family has made a successful run at marriage, a failure that Miranda and her alcoholic brother Andrew call the Jones curse. As for the statue, when it's discovered to be a fake, Miranda sets out to prove that someone stole the original. In this she's helped by gorgeous art thief Ryan Boldari (half-Italian, half-Irish), who's come to Jones Point to steal yet another bronze, which also turns out to be a forgery. Ryan's plan had been to use Miranda as a pawn, but now, naturally, he finds himself falling hard for her. While the two search for bronzes, a standard-issue romance-novel psychotic is stalking them. Most readers will twig to the killer's identity: Here, as always, Roberts's sexual tension is more compelling than her suspense. Perhaps it's time to take a sabbatical from the pink sweatshop and turn her considerable wit and narrative skills to a more original piece of work.
Pub Date: March 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14387-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
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