A diverting, lightweight romance.
Two disparate men vie for the affections of a beautiful, hardworking woman in Jarrett’s debut.
Most of her life, Jesse Tanner has loved Chris Kennedy, but he married someone else. Years later, Jesse takes over a broken-down marina in Montauk, Long Island, working 60-70 hours a week to make it shipshape for the grand reopening. Now divorced, Chris is devastated by the split and determined to never “go that route again.” A captain in the Marine Patrol, he assists the Coast Guard with rescues, and with all that fresh sea air and sun, he’s never looked better. One night, fueled by alcohol, the pair gives in to lust, half-naked among the lobster pots on a deserted dock, and Jesse declares her love. The morning after finds Jesse confessing that she drank too much and isn’t interested in Chris—lies, of course—and then a handsome Wall Street attorney arrives at the marina to reserve a Jet Ski. Polished and moneyed, Jeffrey Wilder has recently bought and renovated the legendary DiPinto place (soon to be profiled in Architectural Digest), and he’s in the market for a local honey. Jeff extravagantly woos Jesse and, on the town, the two often encounter Chris, who wonders if he might be in love with Jesse after all. It’s intelligence, wealth and the Gucci loafers of a Manhattan lawyer versus muscle, guts and the docksiders of a Montauk fisherman. Jesse’s mother, who can’t abide Chris, is rooting for Jeff while urging her daughter, to the point of manipulation, to return to her former swank job on Madison Ave. The book hits the ground running, with Jesse and Chris in the throes of passion, and then ratchets up the sexual tension with both becoming unwilling or unable to voice their feelings, and features about as much exploration of character as might be found in a typical rom-com. One nice touch is Jesse’s longtime English gal-pal, Susannah, who’s bright and funny, with her own set of man troubles—and, best of all, actually sounds like a Brit. The story is well paced, with a little adventure and real-life Montauk history thrown in, and an ending that neither surprises nor disappoints.
A diverting, lightweight romance.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-0557538041
Page Count: 162
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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