A slow-paced Regency romance that reflects on bodily diversity and inclusivity.
Two people living on the periphery of their families take center stage in each other’s life.
Continuing her Ravenswood series, Balogh puts the focus on Ben Ellis, the widowed, illegitimate older brother of the Earl of Stratton, and Lady Jennifer Arden, the mobility-impaired sister of the earl’s new brother-in-law, the Duke of Wilby. Introduced in the previous novels in the series, the protagonists have already been established as kind, family-oriented people who keep their dissatisfactions buried. Ben wants to provide a loving mother to his young daughter even as he hides his childhood grief over losing his own mother. Conscious of his outsider status, he has also accepted that his marital aspirations must be lower than those of his aristocratic family. When he notices Lady Jennifer Arden struggle to walk with crutches, he intends only to assist her in gaining more independence of movement. Yet their stilted acquaintance morphs into a deeper understanding of each other, and sexual desire starts to disturb the resignation they had both felt about their socially prescribed limitations. Their un-courtship progresses over passages of Lady Jennifer acquiring new mobility aids tailored to her body’s abilities, culminating in a moving dance scene. The incorporation of a differently abled protagonist into the love plot without a savior narrative or magical transformation makes for a welcome departure from the genre’s tradition of pairing romance with normative bodies. On the other hand, the narrative is bogged down by a great deal of detail about numerous minor characters and an uncharacteristically clumsy info dump about Ben’s past. Balogh's power in dramatizing the inner life, with meditations on the complexity of human emotions and connections, compensates for this weakness to some extent.
A slow-paced Regency romance that reflects on bodily diversity and inclusivity.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593638385
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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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