A strong start to the series, with enough sizzle to stand alone and plenty of likable characters.
Sparks fly when marketing consultant Ava Lindt lands a contract at a high-end jewelry company run by Sebastian Bennett, San Francisco’s most eligible bachelor.
From the moment Ava shakes hands with the CEO of Bennett Enterprises, she’s smitten. Sebastian is smart, sexy, and...totally off limits. Her contract is only four months long, and past long-distance affairs have left her jaded: “Finding a decent man and counting on him seems like an impossibility, akin to comfortable high heels or sexy period panties.” More importantly, her supervisor, Dirk, forbids romance on the job. But after a few textbook romantic comedy mishaps—a fall which results in Sebastian seeing Ava’s underwear and a face-palm moment when she accidentally sends him a compromising text message meant for her best friend Nadine—her resolve wanes. Sebastian’s incessant flirtation, gifts, and promises to make this the best four months of her life prove, well, irresistible. At first, the lovebirds are content with an illicit fling, but soon, the thought of leaving one another becomes unbearable. And with no family of her own, Ava has grown fond of being an honorary Bennett, complete with nine new siblings and two loving parents. What’s a career-minded woman to do? In this first installment of the Bennett Family series, Hagen (Your Tempting Love, 2017, etc.) employs an easy, conspiratorial writing style, alternating perspectives between the two leads. The CEO–employee power dynamic is hot, and though Ava is impressed by Sebastian’s power and masculinity, she is still every bit his equal. In terms of supporting cast, siblings Logan (chief operating officer and bad cop to Sebastian’s good cop) and Pippa (the company’s creative director) never threaten to steal center stage but are memorable enough that readers will look forward to seeing them again in future books. Toward the finale, Ava and Sebastian’s motivations do drift toward the implausible—both jump to irrational conclusions. It’s mostly forgivable, however, and the resulting conflict makes for a more satisfying ending.
A strong start to the series, with enough sizzle to stand alone and plenty of likable characters.Pub Date: July 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5232-4581-9
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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