An uneven set of stories that’s sometimes entertaining and other times troubling.
Griffin offers a collection of four novellas, each featuring a couple that must overcome personal obstacles to make way for love.
The first story, “No Regrets,” opens with a literal bang—Darien Francis, a small-business owner, finds herself in the middle of a bank robbery alongside security guard Richard Li. Afterward, she quickly falls for his easygoing and accommodating nature but finds herself held back by memories of her late lover and the brutality she experienced during the robbery. In the second story, “Probation,” Shane Kenniston, a former youth orchestra teacher, was accused of sexual assault by a 15-year-old girl, resulting in the loss of his job and the destruction of his social life; things become more complicated when he begins dating his former student’s sister, Beth, without initially realizing who she is. Following this is “The Shape of Life,” about a man named David and a single mother named Kate, whose life revolves around caring for her daughter with muscular dystrophy. The final story, “House Hunters,” concerns a group of friends: Frank, a real estate agent estranged from his young daughter; Gia and Andrea, financially successful newlyweds; and Kayla, a woman who believes all men are “useless.” These novellas often offer fun romantic plots with happy endings. However, they sometimes delve too deeply into issues that seem beyond the scope of brief stories. For example, some discussions of race between Darien, a White woman, and Richard, an East Asian man, come across as strained and excessive, as when he earnestly tells her, “I’ll show you how I go about dating Caucasian girls.” However, the storyline between Shane and Beth is the most problematic, presenting a 30-year-old teacher who slept with a teenage girl as sympathetic, while vilifying the girl he slept with. The series’ third-person narration occasionally offers patronizing or objectifying internal monologues, with little attempt to critique such mentalities: “What was it with women, that they thought you shared some kind of relationship the minute things got physical?”
An uneven set of stories that’s sometimes entertaining and other times troubling.Pub Date: April 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781509248827
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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