A powerfully sexy, moody scenario.
A woman never quite all there loses herself even more completely in a dominating marriage.
In her memoir, The Bad Daughter (1998), Hilden dealt similarly with a disassociated protagonist, and now, in a first novel, manages to write about a bad marriage with a controlling husband (boring) who has a thing for S/M (more boring) and for talking his wife into threesomes (deadly boring) without falling prey to the pitfalls of excess in one direction or another that often accompany this kind of story. Narrator Maya has slept with only two men before she meets Ilan in college and undergoes her sexual awakening under his able and ardent hands. Neither of the two seems terribly motivated toward a career, but, fortunately, Ilan’s father not only works at a magazine where he finds them internships but lets them live in a gorgeous Tribeca loft he owns. Soon, the writing all day and having sex every night doesn’t seem to be doing it for Ilan, who exercises a powerful control over the distant and sedate Maya (in one episode she resorts to liposuction in order to fit into his mother’s old dress for their wedding). The two take out an ad for a sexual third, and it goes without saying that the resulting encounters will all go just as Ilan scripts them—to arouse Maya’s deep need to be controlled. Things progress to blindfolds and razor cuts as the pair explores every last possible angle of their erotic connections. At the same time that Maya is following every order in bed, she is becoming by far the more successful writer of the two, growing into a highly sought-after celebrity interviewer famous for her near-psychic ability to find out the interviewee’s deepest secrets. When tragedy intervenes, it’s no surprise but shocking nevertheless—testament to Hilden’s rather uncanny abilities. With a cool, clear detachment in highly burnished, efficient prose, the story manages to be sensual without losing its head, and psychological without wasting too much time navel-gazing.
A powerfully sexy, moody scenario.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2003
ISBN: 0-452-28443-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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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