A negative review of her book inspires an author and bookstore owner to rewrite her love life.
Just when Maddie Hanson realizes her dream of opening a bookstore in her hometown, her fiance leaves her at the altar to go back to the city. And her first published novel earns a disappointing three-star review from a man called Silver Fox, who claims that the romance in the story falls flat. To add insult to injury, he adds, “I’m left suspecting the author hasn’t had a single romantic experience.” Against her better judgment, Maddie writes him back (using her pen name) to defend herself and her work, but she secretly worries that he might be right. To test her theory, she decides to give each of the men who show up for her book club a chance to be her romantic hero in real life: Charlie Hamilton, a handsome college professor; Max Beckett, her nosy childhood friend; and Dylan Black, an old flame who’s back in town for a break from his music career. She’s even more confused when her ex-fiance, Peter Mercer, shows up to offer her a second chance. Drawing on everything from Pride and Prejudice to You’ve Got Mail, Maddie provides a dizzying analysis of which fictional character each man would be—“It occurred to me he wasn’t Rhett Butler or Rochester. He was Casanova or the Marquis de Valmont.” The men take it surprisingly well. Meanwhile, she and Silver Fox spar over whose life is more pathetic until, miraculously, their animosity morphs into mutual respect. Silver Fox’s first few emails are truly awful—“I find myself wanting to mentor you to a better mental place,” he tells Maddie—but he becomes a viable suitor once he opens up about his life and even shares his own writing. The final few chapters pick up steam as Maddie comes closer to meeting her nemesis—who could be her true love—in real life.
Romance junkies will get a kick out of this fun, self-referential spin on just about every trope in the book.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1821-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
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A clever, romantic, sexy love story.
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The much-loved royal romance genre gets a fun and refreshing update in McQuiston’s debut.
Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the American President Ellen Claremont, knows one thing for sure: He hates Henry, the British prince to whom he is always compared. He lives for their verbal sparring matches, but when one of their fights at a royal wedding goes a bit too far, they end up falling into a wedding cake and making tabloid headlines. An international scandal could ruin Alex’s mother’s chances for re-election, so it’s time for damage control. The plan? Alex and Henry must pretend to be best friends, giving the tabloids pictures of their bromance and neutralizing the threat to Ellen's presidency. But after a few photo ops with Henry, Alex starts to realize that the passionate anger he feels toward him might be a cover for regular old passion. There are, naturally, a million roadblocks between their first kiss and their happily-ever-after—how can American political royalty and actual British royalty ever be together? How can they navigate being open about their sexualities (Alex is bisexual; Henry is gay) in their very public and very scrutinized roles? Alex and Henry must decide if they’ll risk their futures, their families, and their careers to take a chance on happiness. Although the story’s premise might be a fantasy—it takes place in a world in which a divorced-mom Texan Democrat won the 2016 election—the emotions are all real. The love affair between Alex and Henry is intense and romantic, made all the more so by the inclusion of their poetic emails that manage to be both funny and steamy. McQuiston’s strength is in dialogue; her characters speak in hilarious rapid-fire bursts with plenty of “likes,” “ums,” creative punctuation, and pop-culture references, sounding like smarter, funnier versions of real people. Although Alex and Henry’s relationship is the heart of the story, their friends and family members are all rich, well-drawn characters, and their respective worlds feel both realistic and larger-than-life.
A clever, romantic, sexy love story.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31677-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | LBGTQ
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A young woman in hiding from the Russian mob faces a difficult decision when she falls in love with a cop.
Abigail, 28, lives alone in the bucolic hamlet of Bickford, Ark., in an isolated house, fortified with firearms, a state-of-the-art alarm system and a vicious dog named Bert. When the town’s genial police chief, Brooks, suspects Abigail is packing while shopping for gourmet groceries, his curiosity soon morphs into courtship. Although she finds herself drawn to Brooks and to his welcoming, bohemian family, Abigail dares not reveal that her real name is Liz—which is not the only way in which she appears to be Roberts’ answer to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Gifted with an eidetic memory, an IQ over 200 and an affinity for cool, calculated mayhem, Liz/Abigail is a skilled hacker and a highly paid security consultant. In her spare time she investigates the Russian mob and the crooked federal agents who are responsible for her current predicament; whenever possible, she throws virtual monkey wrenches into the mob’s Internet scams. When she witnesses an altercation between Brooks and the wastrel son of a local magnate, she’s thrust back into the horror of the last time she witnessed a crime. At 16, rebelling against an unloving, controlling mother, Liz and a girlfriend, Julie, visited a Chicago nightclub run by the Russian Mafia, where Ilya, son of gang kingpin Sergei, and Alexi, a cousin, seduced them with Cosmos. Later, at Alexi’s lakeside home, Liz was an unseen witness to a hit on Alexi by Sergei’s enforcers, who also killed Julie. Managing to escape, Liz was forced to run again when two dirty FBI agents destroyed her safe house and murdered her guards. A person of interest to both the Feds and the mob, she’s been on the lam for 12 years. Before they can marry, Brooks must help Liz come in from the cold.
A promising start to a series, provided Roberts can flesh out her derivative heroine.Pub Date: April 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15912-1
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE
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