Center delivers another satisfying, romantic read with a swoonworthy hero and a delightful main character.
When a professional bodyguard is assigned to cover a famously reclusive actor, sparks fly.
Hannah Brooks is an Executive Protection Agent, better known as a bodyguard. Although many people picture bodyguards as big, burly men, Hannah stays undercover and unnoticed as a 5-foot-5 female agent, often blending in as a nanny. And although Hannah could easily incapacitate or even kill a threat, her job is to “anticipate harm before it ever materializes—and avoid it.” She spends most of her work time traveling the world, which is just how she likes it—that is, until her mother dies, her boss makes her take some time off, and her fellow agent boyfriend dumps her. Now she’s stuck at home in Houston, grieving and lonely, wishing for a job that could take her far away. So when her boss assigns her to an actor who’s visiting his ailing mother in nearby Katy, Hannah’s not interested. Sure, Jack Stapleton is one of the sexiest men alive, but he’s not even sure he needs a bodyguard despite having a very persistent stalker. But Hannah’s boss has no intention of letting her off the hook, so she ends up protecting Jack as he stays with his family on their ranch. Jack hasn’t been in the public eye since his brother died a few years ago, preferring to hide out in the remote mountains of North Dakota instead of making blockbuster films. Now that he’s back in Texas, he doesn’t want his mother to know he has protection, fearing the stress might adversely affect her treatment, so he convinces Hannah to pose as his girlfriend. As Hannah gets to know Jack and his family, she realizes that there’s more to him than she thought—but how much of their connection is real, and how much of it is acting? Center brings her signature warmth and wit to this movie-ready premise, blending a heartwarming romance with quirky side characters and even a little bit of action. Hannah, who worries that she’s inherently unlovable after getting dumped, is an endearing and vulnerable lead underneath her serious, tough-girl exterior.
Center delivers another satisfying, romantic read with a swoonworthy hero and a delightful main character.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2502-1939-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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