An engaging historical time-travel romance featuring a love that spans the ages.
In this first book in a planned duology, a young woman falls for a man with a painful past and travels back in time to save their love.
Nineteen-year-old Florence Contini is desperately searching for a job. But in New York City in 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, so are a great many others. Luckily, her friend Jim delivers newspapers and brings her the job ads early so she can get a head start on finding a position. Seeing that the mysterious new owner of the Oak’s Place estate is in need of a secretary, Florence eagerly applies and is hired to start the next day. She heard that her employer was a retired British general and assumed that he’d be older, but Alexander Sterling is only in his 40s and quite handsome. Upon their first meeting, his eyes seem familiar to her, and even Alex asks if they’ve met before. If that wasn’t odd enough, Florence keeps having dreams about him—as a younger man. Currently, Alex has a mysterious illness keeping him in bed for days at a time. But what really pains him is a heartbreak he suffered years ago when his wife and infant child died. Florence knows he has secrets, but his questions about her past, and his interest in the bracelet she’s had since birth, have her intrigued—and when she get a supernatural chance to delve further into his past, she can’t pass it up. Over the course of this book, Maidana presents a historical romance that spans lifetimes and timelines. She provides an intriguing take on the idea of soul mates and eternal love, but what really makes the story original and worth a read is the time travel aspect, which is well handled. The story starts a bit slowly, but overall, the prose has an old-world feel that fits perfectly with the time period. The mysteries are intriguing enough to keep the reader guessing and eager to find out more, and the cast of secondary characters, mostly longtime employees of Alex’s, have their own secrets and motives that add to the suspense.
An engaging historical time-travel romance featuring a love that spans the ages.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68046-736-9
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Satin Romance
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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
A book that will wolfishly appeal to the most heated fans of omegaverse erotica.
Tess Covington is a talented, successful contractor who just learned that she’s a late-in-life omega wolf shifter. Her new boss, surly innkeeper Hunter Barrett, is an alpha who’s opposed to the remodeling she’s there to do.
Tess hasn’t made it public that she’s being considered for her own HGTV makeover show, but she runs her career like a well-oiled machine. She posts a lot of her remodels on social media, granting her a certain level of celebrity, and leans on her brothers to help run the business she took over after a stroke made it impossible for her father to keep working. Hunter’s last serious relationship with an omega 10 years ago left him deeply wounded, ending when his parents were killed in a car accident and he moved back home to take care of their lodge—hence his resistance to change. With few exceptions, Tess keeps her newly diagnosed omega status to herself. Unfortunately, as an alpha, Hunter sniffs her out and seems to be the only person capable of helping her with her sudden heats, so there’s a lot of very smutty caretaking. The specificity of omegaverse hierarchy might be new to some readers, but Ferguson’s worldbuilding is quick, easy, and deeply horny. General romance readers might enjoy the grumpy-meets-sunshine and stranded-in-a-snowstorm tropes, although for a book about shifters, the characters spend surprisingly little time in wolf form. There’s not much danger of character development or surprising plot elements here, but for fans excited to read about animalistic mating, that might be enough.
A book that will wolfishly appeal to the most heated fans of omegaverse erotica.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593953693
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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