A disgraced doctor discovers a path to redemption and a chance at true love while serving a medical mission in this romance.
Thirty-two-year-old Cash Stetson feels like a loser. After a scandal involving the sale of stolen body parts from a hospital morgue, he lost his promising career as an emergency room doctor as well as the woman he loves, Lilly Atkins. The one-time golden boy of Brooks, Oklahoma, fled to Texas, but his sojourn has barely begun when he receives the news that Spencer Locke, the man who won Lilly’s heart, has agreed to represent him in his bid to get his medical license reinstated. Reluctantly, Cash returns to Brooks to face his past. At the hearing, the board is convinced that Cash has met the requirements for reinstatement; however, they also believe that his “heart needs work,” so they require him to spend six weeks volunteering as a medical missionary in Mexico. He travels to a hospital in San Miguel where he meets Texan Maggie Craig, a doctor, and his host, Pepper Wylde. As he settles into his assignment, he draws strength from his patients and Pepper’s wisdom. He also forms a friendship with Maggie, whose personal grief and pain mirror his. When he hits rock bottom, he discovers that his new circumstances are a perfect foundation for a renewal of faith and love. The latest from Lloyd (So Many Boots, So Little Time, 2015, etc.) is a winning contemporary romance that gives a memorable character from her MisAdventures of Miss Lilly series the chance to shine. She shows how Cash deals with the fallout from poor choices, and his relationship with Maggie develops at a gradual pace as he learns to let go of his past and face his future. Cash’s past includes the study of European art history, and the narrative is replete with references to real-life artists, particularly Angelina Beloff, a Russian-born painter who lived and worked in Mexico. Although familiarity with the Miss Lilly series may help readers to better understand the relationships between the characters, this installment offers enough backstory to appeal to newcomers.
A gently affecting tale of personal redemption, second chances, and the power of faith.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-365-25941-8
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Rebelle Press
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A group of strangers who live near each other in London become fast friends after writing their deepest secrets in a shared notebook.
Julian Jessop, a septuagenarian artist, is bone-crushingly lonely when he starts “The Authenticity Project”—as he titles a slim green notebook—and begins its first handwritten entry questioning how well people know each other in his tiny corner of London. After 15 years on his own mourning the loss of his beloved wife, he begins the project with the aim that whoever finds the little volume when he leaves it in a cafe will share their true self with their own entry and then pass the volume on to a stranger. The second person to share their inner selves in the notebook’s pages is Monica, 37, owner of a failing cafe and a former corporate lawyer who desperately wants to have a baby. From there the story unfolds, as the volume travels to Thailand and back to London, seemingly destined to fall only into the hands of people—an alcoholic drug addict, an Australian tourist, a social media influencer/new mother, etc.—who already live clustered together geographically. This is a glossy tale where difficulties and addictions appear and are overcome, where lies are told and then forgiven, where love is sought and found, and where truths, once spoken, can set you free. Secondary characters, including an interracial gay couple, appear with their own nuanced parts in the story. The message is strong, urging readers to get off their smartphones and social media and live in the real, authentic world—no chain stores or brands allowed here—making friends and forming a real-life community and support network. And is that really a bad thing?
An enjoyable, cozy novel that touches on tough topics.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7861-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
Did you like this book?
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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.
