Packed with fast-paced action, nail-biting suspense and blazing sexual tension, Shiver plays on a single mother’s tender...
Samantha Jones, a repo driver, gets caught up in a dangerous FBI undercover operation when she inadvertently interrupts a torture in progress and must flee with the...victim? criminal? hero?...bloody guy in the trunk in order to keep her son safe.
All Sam wants to do is repossess the Beemer, collect her money and get home to her 4-year-old son, Tyler. But when the trunk flies open and she goes to investigate, she finds a wounded man, and the next thing she knows, she’s waking up next to him, apparently on the way to her execution. Lucky for Sam—and Marco, the bloody guy—she packs heat, so she’s able to save them both. Now, if only she could lose Marco, who for some reason is determined to keep her close. When she realizes that the bad guys have colleagues hellbent on finding them, and have gone after her son, she knows she’s out of her league. Against her better instincts, she and Tyler go into hiding with Marco, and the U.S. Marshals pledged to protect him. Against her better judgment, she finds herself falling for Marco and placing way too much trust in him. After all, he’s a former federal agent turned traitor, and now he’s ratting out the drug cartel he’s been working for in order to save his own skin. So why does that story not ring true, no matter what the Marshals say? And how could anyone so deceitful promise to protect her? Or worse yet, make her believe that he actually will? Undercover agent Danny Panterro wants nothing more than to end his dangerous “Marco” charade and tell Sam he's falling in love with her. But too much is at stake until the mission is truly over, and he's determined not to lose the woman he's been waiting for. Romantic suspense writer Robards grabs the reader by the throat in the first few scenes and doesn’t let up. A couple of abruptly handled twists slightly mar the last quarter of the book, but overall, this is a riveting, satisfying romantic suspense read.
Packed with fast-paced action, nail-biting suspense and blazing sexual tension, Shiver plays on a single mother’s tender love for her son and an FBI agent’s deep undercover assignment to keep the story taut and the romance conflicted.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-7867-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
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