Simses’ portrait of small-town Maine is enchanting, a place for a reader to linger; it’s unfortunate the plot is so...
A New York lawyer travels to Maine and encounters enough surprises to reconsider her whole life in this conventional romance.
Ruth had a dying last wish: for her granddaughter Ellen to send a very special letter, an apology to Chet Cummings, the small-town boy whose heart she broke 60 years ago. Ellen decides to travel to Gran’s hometown of Beacon, Maine, to hand-deliver the note, and so begins a week of transformation for a woman who already has it all. Ellen is so charmed by the scenery in Beacon that she walks out on a private dock to indulge her photography hobby. The dock breaks beneath her, and she is swept out in a riptide. Thankfully, someone saves her from drowning. On the beach, she is shocked and relieved. In the arms of handsome savior Roy, she gives him a big kiss. Embarrassed by the incident, she slinks back to the B&B. When her fiance calls, she doesn’t tell him a thing. Why not? Hayden Croft is handsome, elegant and heir apparent to an American political dynasty. And she has the rock from Van Cleef & Arpels to prove it. But she can’t stop thinking about Roy and that kiss. The next day, they have a few rowdy, infuriating and wonderful hours at the local bar. The day after, with a hangover and vague memories of Roy, Ellen sets upon her quest to find Chet. Along the way, she discovers paintings by her grandmother and learns she was so talented she was given an art scholarship. Revelations follow. When Hayden comes to Maine to rescue Ellen, she has to consider the kind of life she really wants to live.
Simses’ portrait of small-town Maine is enchanting, a place for a reader to linger; it’s unfortunate the plot is so predictable.Pub Date: July 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-22585-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Like a popcorn action flick: fun but lacking in substance.
Two wolf shifters must catch a criminal in the midst of hazardous winter weather: Action, adventure, and romance kick off a new series by Spear (Falling for the Cougar, 2019, etc.).
Private Investigator Nicole Grayson has an edge that some of her colleagues don’t. She’s a gray wolf shifter, and her heightened sense of smell makes for excellent tracking abilities. When her latest assignment, investigating a fraudulent life insurance claim, leads her to an isolated ski lodge inhabited by a group of shifter brothers, Nicole realizes that this particular mission is different. Blake Wolff has finally found peace and quiet, as he and his brothers have turned their land into a sanctuary for wolf shifters like themselves. When Nicole turns up at the lodge, sniffing around and looking for answers, Blake volunteers to help. The sooner she wraps up her investigation, the sooner Blake can return to maintaining the calm community the Wolff siblings have built. The suspense never fully delivers despite the setup of dangerous situations and the characters’ ability to shift into wolves. Of course, the bad guys get caught and the good guys prevail, but the stakes never seem terribly high. With corny, on-the-nose details such as having Wolff and Grayson as surnames for gray wolf shifters, it's hard to tell if Spear is in on the joke or if some things sounded better in theory than reality. The brightest spot here, as in most of Spears’ books, is her dedication to writing strong heroines with interesting professions, and Nicole fits perfectly into that box. She’s capable, competent, and a force to be reckoned with in a difficult situation. Blake is happy to let her take the lead without any egos getting in the way, which is something all readers will appreciate.
Like a popcorn action flick: fun but lacking in substance.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9775-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Starts out promising but never quite gets out of first gear.
A laconic auto-body shop owner hopes to woo a longtime crush, but he has to overcome his past trauma to convince her they belong together.
Rena Jackson has started her own hair salon in Seattle and wants her personal life to rev up, too, but she has almost given up on Axel Heller’s making a move. Though she finds the German transplant attractive, she worries that he is commitment-phobic and not ready for true intimacy. With both their upbringings shadowing them (his involves domestic violence and hers a single mother who has looked for love too often), can two strong, wary people become vulnerable to love? Harte (Delivered With a Kiss, 2019, etc.) provides readers with passages about Axel’s painful memories and his fear of being a physical threat to a woman. This is a useful counter to some novels’ tendency to romanticize the threat of male power. But the limited, alternating perspective leaves Rena in the dark for much longer than the reader, with the result that her complaints about Axel’s attachment style edge her into unlikable territory. The novel is threaded together by Axel's awkward (albeit funny) attempts to court Rena with gifts and other gestures but doesn't allow her similar space to show her personality and get us to root for the couple. The quick references to, and scenes with, numerous peripheral characters bog down the romance arc further. The handling of the white supremacists who have been threatening Rena, who's African American, is a broad-stroke attempt to acknowledge racism but lacks nuance, as does a scene involving homophobia. While the novel’s title and cover allude to recent successes like The Kiss Quotient and The Hating Game, it lacks the former’s thematic firm-footedness and the latter’s tonal mastery of comedy and emotion.
Starts out promising but never quite gets out of first gear.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9698-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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