A taut romantic suspenser that may appeal to fans of Nora Roberts’ work.
In Fleming’s (Whatever We Are, 2017, etc.) romantic thriller, an FBI agent discovers that the woman he loves has a hidden past, which puts them both in the cross hairs of a dangerous fugitive.
FBI agent Derek Bronson joins the team investigating a robbery and homicide at the Pipersburg Community Bank. He believes the case is connected to similar crimes that have been taking place throughout Kentucky and West Virginia. This case is personal for Derek, because his father, Jack, was murdered during one of the other robberies. After joining the team, Derek travels to nearby Highland Springs for the wedding of his friends, Kate and Brody, and at a bar, he meets Riley Smith, a florist and friend of the couple. Derek and Riley’s attraction is immediate and passionate. As the investigation continues, the team gets a major break when surveillance photos show a woman spending marked money from one of the robberies. The woman looks like Riley, but authorities identify her as Angela Breeland. When questioned by Derek and the team, Riley admits that she is Angela, but that she changed her name because she’s hiding from Tyler Power, an abusive ex-boyfriend who’d forced her into sex work. Derek soon finds himself in a race against time to catch a serial robber and protect the woman he loves. Fleming’s series starter offers intriguing, compulsively readable romantic suspense, bolstered by strong characters and a twisty, fast-paced story. Riley is a complex heroine with a tragic and harrowing past; her backstory is slowly revealed as Derek investigates her possible connection to the crime spree. The romance between her and Derek heats up quickly, heightened by their palpable chemistry, particularly in an early scene in which they flirt during a game of pool. The supporting players are also well-developed—particularly Riley’s former boyfriend Tyler Power and her beloved brother, Cody Breeland.
A taut romantic suspenser that may appeal to fans of Nora Roberts’ work.Pub Date: June 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68291-743-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This large, stately, and intensely powerful new novel by the author of Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show is constructed around a cattle drive—an epic journey from dry, hard-drinking south Texas, where a band of retired Texas Rangers has been living idly, to the last outpost and the last days of the old, unsettled West in rough Montana. The time is the 1880s. The characters are larger than life and shimmer: Captain Woodrow Call, who leads the drive, is the American type of an unrelentingly righteous man whose values are puritanical and pioneering and whose orders, which his men inevitably follow, lead, toward the end, to their deaths; talkative Gus McCrae, Call's best friend, learned, lenient, almost magically skilled in a crisis, who is one of those who dies; Newt, the unacknowledged 17-year-old son of Captain Call's one period of self-indulgence and the inheritor of what will become a new and kinder West; and whores, drivers, misplaced sheriffs and scattered settlers, all of whom are drawn sharply, engagingly, movingly. As the rag-tag band drives the cattle 3,000 miles northward, only Call fails to learn that his quest to conquer more new territories in the West is futile—it's a quest that perishes as men are killed by natural menaces that soon will be tamed and by half-starved renegades who soon will die at the hands of those less heroic than themselves. McMurtry shows that it is a quest misplaced in history, in a landscape that is bare of buffalo but still mythic; and it is only one of McMurtry's major accomplishments that he does it without forfeiting a grain of the characters' sympathetic power or of the book's considerable suspense. This is a masterly novel. It will appeal to all lovers of fiction of the first order.
Pub Date: June 1, 1985
ISBN: 068487122X
Page Count: 872
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1985
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
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
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