McKinney (A Man to Slay Dragons, 1995, etc.) writes an old-fashioned gothic to which she adds a little S&M. On the bleak and misty Yorkshire moors lies the ancestral home of the Newells, Cairncross Castle, looking ``like a gargoyle crouched by the sea.'' It is here that Alexandra Benjamin comes to help and work with a 30-year-old man with the mind of a child. She is the daughter of a Jewish doctor (an ``infidel'') who specialized in audiology and taught Alex everything he knew. After his death, Alex, pretending to be a man, accepts a commission from John Damien Newell to teach his brother Sam to speak again. Sam has apparently been struck dumb by something he saw one day in the Roman catacombs that underlie the castle, and both boys were severely traumatized by their childhood governess—the evil, flame-haired Ursula Pole, whose ghost haunts the castle and walks the moors. Lord Newell, when he discovers that Alex Benjamin is really a woman, decides to let her stay on in the role of governess. He's attracted by her self-assurance, her goodness and optimism. Since Ursula's death, Newell has been dominated by the dark side of his personality, never letting himself be vulnerable to the love of a good woman; instead, he spends his time with his London mistress, to whom he administers whippings (in Wapping). Fearing that he'll be persuaded to change his nasty habits, Newell tries to seduce Alex to his evil, ungentle ways. Alex takes a very long time figuring out that the poor tormented baron didn't kill Ursula, who sexually assaulted him when he was a boy. Tedium relieved only by unintentionally humorous prose (``But once the dam broke into madness, there was no bucket large enough to put the water back''), in a work often bordering on camp.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-57566-136-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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