An engrossing novel but one with structural issues and a rushed ending.
Roberts debuts with an interracial love story that follows the adventurous life of an aspiring model–turned–wife and mother of twins.
Torey Jackson is a tall, beautiful Black girl growing up in an impoverished urban neighborhood in Seattle with her loving, dedicated single mother, Carol. She dreams of becoming a famous model and fashion designer, but she first must get through the realistically portrayed mean-girl melodrama of high school with her best friend, Shorty, and her White star-quarterback boyfriend, Noah Kirkland, who captures her heart despite their personal and familial differences. While Torey comes from a poor childhood of struggle and dysfunction, Noah is the son of a billionaire aeronautics entrepreneur. Somehow the pair’s love surmounts these issues, and afterward, the story takes some jarring, sexually explicit detours as the novel morphs from an entertaining coming-of-age novel to a steamy, explicit love story about randy young adults. The love-struck Torey and Noah quickly marry and raise their family in a big house in Seattle. But complications ensue in the form of Noah’s marital indiscretions and corporate machinations along with a football tragedy involving a son. The author inexplicably saves a life-altering deus ex machina for the final pages, which snaps the story to a sudden close and sets the scene for further adventures. Roberts invests the story with good pacing and crisp characterizations as he creatively and entertainingly deals with the challenges of interracial relationships and wealth disparities in a marriage. The chapter headings incorporate the author’s illustrations, which add a unique zest and color to each section. Despite the far-too-hasty conclusion of the book, Roberts’ enthusiasm is obvious, and the opening pages hook readers, who will be eager to discover what will become of Torey and Noah and whether their love can last. What resonates most over the course of the book is its focus on realizing dreams and making the most (and the best) of any situation.
An engrossing novel but one with structural issues and a rushed ending.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63985-937-5
Page Count: 444
Publisher: Fulton Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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