Pallid thrills.
Just when she most desperately needs her special powers, a psychic FBI agent is unable to draw on them in the final installment of Hooper’s latest trilogy (Chill of Fear, 2005, etc.).
Riley Crane is a member of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit, a team of agents with a variety of psychic gifts. On unofficial assignment investigating possible occult activity in coastal South Carolina, she wakes up in bed covered with buckets of blood. She’s uninjured; the pistol that she keeps under her pillow is right where it’s supposed to be; and the rented house is undisturbed. But she can’t remember anything from the recent past. Why does her neatly unpacked wardrobe include sexy, brand-new lingerie? And why does someone whose meals are usually take-out have such a well-stocked refrigerator? Checking in with the home office, Riley finds that she has apparently been on autopilot for about three weeks. Her “spider sense” and clairvoyance may have deserted her, but her spunk has not. Riley straps on her piece and rejoins the world, looking for clues about what she was doing before she blacked out. It helps when local police summon her to a crime scene where it appears that devil worshipers have strung up and beheaded a middle-aged Caucasian male. Super-handsome District Attorney Ash Prescott arrives soon after, and hot shivers tell Riley she’s been boffing the DA, though she has no recollection of it. Trusting her sense memory, she is soon rolling again in the sheets with Ash, who not only has rippling muscles and broad shoulders but great culinary skills. (That explains the full fridge.) Food is extremely important for Riley, who has the metabolism of a hummingbird and needs extra energy for psychic bursts—a plot point that does not excuse the distracting product placement for PowerBars, which constantly turn up on cue. Despite further memory lapses, Riley never gives up, sensing that Someone Evil has it in for her.
Pallid thrills.Pub Date: July 18, 2006
ISBN: 0-553-80318-2
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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