A sweet, sexy, fun romance, with clever accents of suspense and entertaining dollops of humor.
Instead of taking the veil as planned, Annabel is whisked away from the convent and ordered to marry Scotsman Ross MacKay, her runaway sister’s intended groom.
Since being sent to a convent as an oblate before she was 10 years old, Annabel has known a stern, joyless existence. Now, just weeks before she’s meant to take her vows, Annabel’s mother shows up to bring her back home, forcing her to marry the man her sister, Kate, has been betrothed to since birth. But Kate has eloped with a servant, and her parents, desperate for the dower, pass Annabel off in her place. After two decades in a stifling religious environment, Annabel’s enthusiasm for her newfound freedom and a thousand new experiences is irrepressible, and Ross MacKay, her new husband, is captivated by her charm and spirit, despite the realization she is not his intended bride. Settling into his home and her place as wife of a clan laird, Annabel falls in love with her new life—and her husband—but she has been warned by her mother to keep her convent existence a secret, a detail which rests uneasily beside her honesty and straightforward nature. Navigating her new happiness against a wealth of secrets becomes even more complicated when an unknown enemy seems determined to harm Annabel; Ross must protect and defend the English wife he never knew he wanted but now finds he cannot live without. With humor, wit and compassion, Sands spins the touching tale of a lonely outsider who is rescued from the jaws of a bleak future and finds emotional and physical happiness through a marriage that was never meant to be. Ross is Annabel’s perfect hero, allowing her to come into her own and standing up for her in quiet, powerful ways. Watching Ross and his clan fall in love with Annabel is touching, and Ross’ prowess at maneuvering the church’s “bedding laws” and Annabel’s entrenched religious obedience are highly amusing.
A sweet, sexy, fun romance, with clever accents of suspense and entertaining dollops of humor.Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-196311-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
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
To her usual mix of love, mystery, and passion, Roberts (Sanctuary, 1997, etc.)—author of 115 romancers in some 17 years—adds Renaissance art and a decidedly Medici-like family: the Joneses of Maine. Dr. Miranda Jones, nearly six feet with flaming red hair and a glacial reserve, is an archeometrist who specializes in the analyzing and dating of Renaissance bronze sculpture. Miranda hopes to secure a world-class reputation for herself by authenticating a 15th-century statue of the Dark Lady, one of the mistresses of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the undiscovered work of a young Michelangelo. Miranda's mother, Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones, the emotionally remote director of the Standjo art lab in Florence, has summoned her daughter from the family's Victorian cliffside home in Jones Point, Maine, to test the statue. Meanwhile, Miranda's father, equally remote, is an archaeologist who spends more time at his digs than at home. In fact, no one in the Jones family has made a successful run at marriage, a failure that Miranda and her alcoholic brother Andrew call the Jones curse. As for the statue, when it's discovered to be a fake, Miranda sets out to prove that someone stole the original. In this she's helped by gorgeous art thief Ryan Boldari (half-Italian, half-Irish), who's come to Jones Point to steal yet another bronze, which also turns out to be a forgery. Ryan's plan had been to use Miranda as a pawn, but now, naturally, he finds himself falling hard for her. While the two search for bronzes, a standard-issue romance-novel psychotic is stalking them. Most readers will twig to the killer's identity: Here, as always, Roberts's sexual tension is more compelling than her suspense. Perhaps it's time to take a sabbatical from the pink sweatshop and turn her considerable wit and narrative skills to a more original piece of work.
Pub Date: March 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14387-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
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