For fans of Americana romance and Susan Elizabeth Phillips and those who root for the healing of a bruised heart, especially...
Memories of teen heartbreak surface when a Silicon Valley businesswoman at a personal and professional crossroad returns to her roots in California hill country—and runs into her first love.
Long (Wild at Whiskey Creek, 2016, etc.) brings us back to Hellcat Canyon in this third novel in her contemporary romance series. The town and its residents will provide a familiar backdrop to readers of the previous books, who will place Avalon Harwood as the daughter and sister of recurring characters and invest in her losses and dreams. Chief among them is Avalon’s adolescent soul mate, Mac Coltrane, who never loved anyone like he did his childhood frenemy and has felt unmoored all his life since their parting. The son of a rich resident of the town, Mac reinvented himself after the family money vanished but avoids emotional ties. Meeting after a dozen years, the former couple find themselves quarreling over the rightful ownership of his old house and bickering as they skate around the truth of why their love ended so abruptly. Renewing their childhood pattern of smirking competition, they lob sallies at each other through creative revenge tactics, but the game is underlaid by their decadeslong unconsummated sexual tension. As comic scenes alternate with moments of potent memory and sizzling desire, the new relationship unfolds in the manner of a tango. Cheeky repartee, liquid imagery, and quiet reflection on roads not taken show the author’s expanding stylistic palette (notwithstanding the clichéd allusion to rom-com classic Say Anything, which seems to be epidemic in the genre).
For fans of Americana romance and Susan Elizabeth Phillips and those who root for the healing of a bruised heart, especially one that scorned romance or let it go as a childish thing.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-267288-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
