A deft mixture of romance and humor in a story featuring a likable protagonist and cute critters: It’s a date Andrews fans...
Andrews (Christmas Bliss, 2013, etc.) produces another happily-ever-after with the usual complications; her heroine this time is a Savannah florist trying to gain a foothold in the bridal industry.
Bloom owner Cara Kryzik is barely keeping her business afloat creating innovative flower arrangements for weddings, and the last distraction she anticipates is historic-building restorer Jack Finnerty. The two met when Cara accused him of stealing her runaway goldendoodle puppy, and now Jack seems to show up at every wedding she designs. Cara isn't immune to Jack’s charms, but she initially attempts to ignore their developing attraction. Her experience growing up with an emotionally distant and sometimes physically absent military father and her recent divorce from a philandering husband have left her feeling jaded when it comes to love. But Jack’s sincerity and persistence win her over, and soon they’re sharing a bed. Cara’s career also is looking up. She wins a lucrative contract to design and direct a society wedding, and the money she’s slated to receive upon completion will enable her to pay off a loan, solidify her reputation as a floral designer and plan some much-needed improvements for her business. However, troubles multiply, and it’s not long before Cara is juggling her time between the unhappy bride and the bride's micromanaging stepmother. In addition, Bert, her assistant and friend, becomes increasingly distant and unreliable; a competitor tries to undermine her business; and a client’s family heirloom goes missing. As Cara tries to sort out problems and repair damage, she’s ultimately forced to face her own beliefs and make some tough decisions. But, in trademark Andrews style, things end on a high note in another light, predictable and pleasant diversion.
A deft mixture of romance and humor in a story featuring a likable protagonist and cute critters: It’s a date Andrews fans won’t want to miss.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01969-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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