A fun, fast, and romantic story.
A woman starts a new life on a small island…but soon finds herself in the middle of a hurricane.
Bree Beckham needs to start over. After her boyfriend’s best friend tries to sexually assault her, no one supports her—not even her mom or boyfriend. So Bree retreats to Little Bridge Island, the site of many treasured childhood vacations. She finds work as a waitress at the Mermaid Café and, after three months, feels like she fits in with the quirky locals. When Hurricane Marilyn heads straight toward Little Bridge, Bree decides to stay—despite everyone on the mainland encouraging her to evacuate. Like many residents, she has a good reason not to leave—her senior cat, Gary, who can’t travel. Bree and Gary ride out the storm at the large, generator-powered home of her bosses, who choose not to evacuate because last time they did, someone broke into their restaurant and stole an industrial meat slicer. Bree rides out the storm in relative luxury, but when it’s all over, she realizes that not everyone was so lucky. There’s significant property damage on the island, but worst of all, the storm took out the bridge to the mainland. When Bree finds out that many owners left their pets behind, assuming they’d be able to come back in a couple of days, she takes it upon herself to rescue them. With the help of her mother, a famous radio host, she instructs people to call her landline if they have stranded pets. But Bree doesn’t have to do it all alone—her bosses’ nephew, the hunky playboy Drew Hartwell, wants to help. After her bad experiences with men, Bree swears she’s on a man-cation…but Drew is pretty cute and obviously interested in her. Cabot (Bridal Boot Camp, 2018, etc.) creates a story that’s full of timely issues, most notably the tendency of 24/7 news channels to sensationalize big storms. Through Bree, Cabot encourages readers to avoid judging people who stay behind in a hurricane to care for loved ones or protect their businesses. And although animal-lover Bree is initially horrified that pets were left behind, she quickly learns that many people had good reasons for evacuating without their animals. Written in Cabot’s typically entertaining, breezy style, with tons of quirky side characters to liven up the story, this book will encourage readers to think compassionately about people who make hard decisions in the face of natural disasters.
A fun, fast, and romantic story.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289004-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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