An engaging depiction of the challenges that face businesswomen.
Two strong women take on the high finance world of Silicon Valley in Cameron’s debut novel.
San Francisco venture capitalist Ryn Brennan discovers that Todd, her successful real-estate agent husband of 10 years, has been having an affair with someone nicknamed “Carly-bear.” It turns out to be Carly Santos, the co-founder and chief scientist of BioLarge, a health tech startup in which Ryn’s firm is about to invest. Carly, the 35-year-old single mother of a 5-year-old, is innocently planning her wedding to Todd, whom she thinks is a widower. Ryn reels from Todd’s betrayal and soon comes to understand he’s been lying to both his wife and his unwitting mistress. The two women come to forge a connection, with Ryn serving as a mentor, professional ally, and close friend to Carly, who has an unusual backstory; she stole from her parents’ church fund and ran away with her boyfriend at 15. She also carries a visible symbol of her chaotic past: an arm-length tattoo of a gun, a bleeding skull, and butterflies. Removing it would be difficult, she realizes: “Just like her past, it would still have been there, transformed into ghost scars.” Alternating chapters reflect Carly and Ryn’s viewpoints, respectively, and each woman emerges as believable and sympathetic. The well-crafted narrative sizzles with tense, relatable, and realistic scenes involving a dreaded call from a child’s school during an important meeting, unwanted advances from co-workers, and the ongoing struggle for respect in the boardroom. Although Todd comes off as a somewhat stereotypical villain, other characters are intriguing, such as Carly’s entrepreneur friend Dev and Ryn’s assistant, Keisha,a talented young woman who confronts sexism and racism in the workplace. Throughout, readers will root for these women’s success.
An engaging depiction of the challenges that face businesswomen.Pub Date: July 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5092-3138-6
Page Count: 386
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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