A compelling series opener about friendship that will make readers want to devour the sequel.
This first installment of a new adult trilogy follows three college friends as they grapple with romance, jealousy, and threats.
Melody Wilkins, Imani Jordan, and Lance Dunn are best friends. The three students brave college, looking out for one another as love, classes, and perils get in their way. Melody is the romantic, hoping to find true love at college just like her parents. Studious Imani focuses on obtaining a chemical engineering degree, though a potential romance with her lab partner proves a distraction. And then there is charming football player Lance, who is always supporting Melody and Imani while trying to find a new woman to sleep with every night. After a fraternity party, Melody runs into a cute guy named Kevin, whom she instantly falls for. But Imani senses that something is off about him. When he exhibits signs of jealousy and suspicion, distancing Melody from her friends, Imani and Lance begin to worry. Meanwhile, Imani fights her feelings for fellow engineering student Trevor. When the two intern in Suffern, New York, for the summer, their banter fuels the sexual tension between them. As for Lance, he is hoping to land in the NFL, and though his storyline is less developed than Melody’s and Imani’s, his determination to protect his friends becomes a pivotal part of the plot. When a violent encounter threatens Melody’s life, the trio’s friendship is put to the test. Raye understands her new-adult audience and crafts likable, flawed, multidimensional players who are still trying to figure things out. Melody, Imani, and Lance are distinct characters yet their bonds and interactions enhance one another. It’s a bit unclear how the three became close cohorts, but their friendship is believable. The author’s depiction of a college setting is spot-on, from frat parties and dorm rooms to summer internships. Raye deftly navigates the feelings and dramas of these students’ college years as well as the protagonists’ strivings to find success, lifelong friends, and love.
A compelling series opener about friendship that will make readers want to devour the sequel.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-940361-00-0
Page Count: 308
Publisher: J-pad Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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