Spicy sexual chemistry and a generous dash of authentic Puerto Rican flavor blend together in a sharp romance that begs to...
A popular Hollywood actor who's putting his body through drastic transformations to establish himself as a versatile performer finds himself enamored by a sassy fitness trainer, learning that there’s more to life than a job.
Fitness expert and trainer Tori Alvarez decides to go to Aruba to escape the gossip and speculation surrounding her rocky relationship with a publicity-hungry politician. She meets up-and-coming sitcom star Carter Stone on her flight to Aruba, but since he's fresh from the set of a film which required him to shed several pounds and grow a beard, she doesn’t recognize him. Tori is still sore from her previous relationship, but she finds herself reluctantly charmed by Carter’s impishness, and they spend a couple of idyllic days laughing and bantering. Then, when a nosy paparazzo descends on Carter, Tori discovers the truth about his identity and feels tremendously betrayed. Hoping to thaw Tori’s anger, Carter approaches her for assistance when he realizes that he will have to gain back his robust physique quickly to bag a role in a big-budget Hollywood film. Before she can let Carter back into her life, though, Tori is forced to decide if she can overcome her reluctance to live a life in the public eye. The first installment in the Love on Cue series is charming, witty, and consistently funny and will get readers invested in the sharply etched secondary characters. Although the final resolution of Tori’s personal troubles seems too pat to ring true, Sosa hits all the right notes by weaving a uniformly entertaining story that effortlessly unpacks several socially relevant themes, such as the relationship between fitness and traditional cuisine and the nature of show business.
Spicy sexual chemistry and a generous dash of authentic Puerto Rican flavor blend together in a sharp romance that begs to be savored.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-269033-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Brilliant.
Combining an unerring instinct for telling detail with the broader brushstrokes you need to tackle issues of culture and politics, Patchett (The Magician’s Assistant, 1997, etc.) creates a remarkably compelling chronicle of a multinational group of the rich and powerful held hostage for months.
An unnamed impoverished South American country hopes to woo business from a rich Japanese industrialist, Mr. Hosokawa, by hosting a birthday party at which his favorite opera singer, Roxane Coss, entertains. Because the president refuses to miss his soap opera, the vice-president hosts the party. An invading band of terrorists, who planned to kidnap the president, find themselves instead with dozens of hostages on their hands. They free the less important men and all the women except Roxane. As the remaining hostages and their captors settle in, Gen, Mr. Hosokawa’s multilingual translator, becomes the group’s communication link, Roxane and her music its unifying heart. Patchett weaves individual histories of the hostages and the not-so-terrifying terrorists within a tapestry of their present life together. The most minor character breathes with life. Each page is dense with incident, the smallest details magnified by the drama of the situation and by the intensity confinement always creates. The outside world recedes as time seems to stop; the boundaries between captive and captor blur. In pellucid prose, Patchett grapples with issues of complexity and moral ambiguity that arise as confinement becomes not only a way of life but also for some, both hostage and hostage-taker, a life preferable to their previous existence. Readers may intellectually reject the author’s willingness to embrace the terrorists’ humanity, but only the hardest heart will not succumb. Conventional romantic love also flowers, between Gen and Carmen, a beguilingly innocent terrorist, between Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane. Even more compelling are the protective, almost familial affections that arise, the small acts of kindness in what is, inevitably, a tragedy.
Brilliant.Pub Date: June 2, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-018873-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
A scheming rival and an obsessive fan convince a TV star that she's a long way from Kansas—in more sudsy romantic suspense from Roberts (Honest Illusions, 1992). Deanna Reynolds and Angela Perkins are both smart, talented, attractive, and ambitious. The big difference between the two talk- show hosts is that Angela is an attention-hungry woman desperate to maintain her fading charms and worshipful audience at all costs, while Dee maintains her Midwestern values even as her Chicago-based show makes her a star and threatens Angela's in New York. Angela, who was once Dee's mentor, has never forgiven the younger woman for turning down her offer to come to New York with her. Even less forgivable is Dee's romance with Finn Riley, a footloose foreign correspondent and once Angela's lover. Finn, who coolly calls in exclusives from a crash-landing 747, shrugs off a bullet wound while he broadcasts live during a shootout, and indisputably earns the nickname "Desert Hunk" during the Gulf War, finds his match in the unbelievably beautiful, desirable, and sweet Deanna. While the two make seismic love on any available surface and Angela plots Dee's downfall in the ratings, a secret admirer (whose identity is more obvious than the author must have intended) writes her love notes. Then, one by one, he begins to kill off all the people who have hurt or betrayed her—and attempts to realize his insane dream of making Deanna entirely his own. A sexy hero whose no-nonsense presence cuts through the vapors and cattiness of the womenfolk and a convincing behind-the-scenes look at TV—both help make up for the weak humor, implausible plot, and trite glitz of this predictable novel.
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0425190382
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
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