A richly textured picaresque full of adventure, intrigue, and erotic passion.
Two Venetian men fall in love while battling the city-state’s enemies in Mellman’s rollicking medieval romance novel.
In 1371, the Republic of Venice is threatened by a potential alliance between the loathsome Lord Francesco Carrara of Padua (who is pillaging Venetian territory and illegally selling salt below the customary price) and the arrogant King Louis of Hungary (who covets the Venetian-held town of Treviso). Centering the story are Niccolò Saltano, a 17-year-old aide to His Exalted Serenity, the Doge of Venice and the finest crossbowman in Venice, and Donato Venturi, the son of a Venetian nobleman and an enslaved Malian princess—hence his fetching combination of brown skin and sapphire blue eyes—and the finest swordsman in Venice. On a spy mission to Louis’ court, the duo dispatch bandits, kill a wild boar, save Louis from a bear attack, and then slaughter the assassins he treacherously assigns to murder them. Along the way they are taken in by the monks of Saint Mary’s, who encourage them, after much spiritual counseling, to consummate their mounting sexual attraction in the priory’s grotto. Back in Venice, Niccolò and Donato enter the thick of the ensuing war with Padua and Hungary as they formulate strategy, lead troops in battle, are captured and escape, and investigate conspirators selling state secrets to the enemy. They also delve into the murky activities of Niccolò’s monstrous father, Marcantonio Gradenigo, who raped Niccolò’s mother—and raped and killed Donato’s mother as well—and is now posing as the Augustinian monk Brother Bernardo as he plots with a cabal of disgruntled nobles to overthrow the Republic and place Niccolò’s odious half brother, Ruggiero Gradenigo, on the Doge’s throne. With all of that on their plates, Niccolò and Donato still find plenty of time for lengthy, graphic sexual trysts.
Mellman’s period adventure feels a bit like a gay take on Othello without the madness or much jealousy, featuring sharply etched characters (“He speaks with precision and supreme authority,” Niccolò observes of Louis, though “[h]is lips, full and pendulous, fill me with repugnance”) and rousing, well-staged action scenes (“I plunge my blade into his exposed flank, twisting to force him to his knees, raging and helpless as I stomp him flat, pinion him with my boots, and with every ounce of strength in my being, plunge my sword into his heart again and again”). With pungent, evocative prose, Mellman immerses readers in a fine re-creation of medieval life and worldviews, especially the centrality of Catholicism, whether in ecstatic devotion (“Christ ascendant hovers majestically in the golden dome above our heads, where sunlight pours through the windows of the transepts over the gold tiles framing the last scenes of Christ’s earthly journey,” Niccolò notes while gazing at St. Mark’s Cathedral) or in earthy, Chaucerian observations of social mores (“Between here and Trieste, I know every village with a humble church, a stingy bishop, and a bawdy housewife with plenty of hay in the barn and a spare penny for a knuckle from the little toe of St. Agnes of Todi,” chuckles a mendicant friar Niccolò and Donato meet on the road). This captivating period saga mixes precise, colorful details with epic sweep.
A richly textured picaresque full of adventure, intrigue, and erotic passion.Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9781648906565
Page Count: 439
Publisher: NineStar Press
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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