A romantic thriller that would have benefited from more characters’ perspectives.
In the first installment of Bell’s thriller series, an antiquities appraiser and a wealthy womanizer try to escape the curse of an ancient necklace.
Twenty-eight-year-old Annalisse Drury wants to leave the launch of New York City’s Zavos Art gallery. The owner, Generosa “Gen” Zavos, is her favorite client, but today is the birthday of Samantha Freeman, Annalisse’s recently murdered best friend, so she’d rather not listen to partygoers’ gossip. Gen’s handsome son, Alec, tries to woo Annalisse, but she’s wary of his lothario reputation. Then she notices a gold bib necklace with “a neat row of horses hanging from the collar” on display—one that’s similar to a bracelet that Sam’s killer stole. Annalisse believes that the murderer will come after the necklace, too, which makes the gallery a possible target. Although Gen initially disregards her concern, Annalisse explains that the ancient Persian jewelry is cursed. Later that night, Harry Carradine, Annalisse’s boss, falls unconscious, and he’s revealed to have been poisoned. When Russian-speaking men break into Annalisse’s house, demanding the necklace and threatening to kill her and Alec, the pair flee with the jewelry to the Catskills and then to Greece. Before long, they’re face to face with their true enemy. Debut author Bell delivers a great, slow-building romance, gently examining her characters’ painful pasts: Annalisse blames herself for her parents’ deaths 15 years ago, and Alec was married to a woman who suffered a mental breakdown after a late-term miscarriage. However, it will be hard for readers to become invested in other elements; it’s sometimes unclear why the two main players are willing to put themselves (and their loved ones) in jeopardy for a necklace rather than involving police detectives early on. Annalisse says that “giving it to authorities may put us in more danger,” but it’s hard to believe that holding onto the necklace is worth all the violence and loss that befalls them. Also, the conflict would bear more weight if Bell included the evildoers’ motivations and points of view. Fortunately, it’s easy to let much of this slide and simply watch the romance unfold.
A romantic thriller that would have benefited from more characters’ perspectives.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9995394-0-8
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Ewephoric
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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