An engaging tale about how childhood expectations can be transformed on the journey through adulthood.
Longtime best friends struggle to remain connected when their lives take divergent paths.
Keely Green and Isabelle Maxwell have been attached at the hip since preschool. Although they are both natives of Nantucket, they have always had very different lifestyles. Where Keely resides in a modest home, Isabelle’s attorney father is able to provide his family with every luxury. Even so, the girls bond over their love of Nantucket and shared dreams of becoming writers. As they grow and end up at different colleges, they see that life can often complicate friendships, and they begin to gradually grow apart. When Isabelle declares she has found the perfect man, Keely begins dating Isabelle’s long-ago boyfriend, Tommy. Tension over Tommy causes the young women’s relationship to grow increasingly strained. Adding drama to this now-fraught relationship is the moment when Keely makes it as a bestselling novelist and moves to New York, while Isabelle, who was always the more cosmopolitan of the pair, is still living on the island, with no professional prospects in sight. Despite her success, Keely feels empty without Isabelle at her side. As these young women see their lives unfolding in ways they never expected, the biggest question they face is whether they will ever find a way back to each other. Offering details about life on Nantucket—both during the winter months, when only true islanders are present, and in summer, when the town is overrun with vacationers—Thayer (A Nantucket Wedding, 2018, etc.) brings the island to life so vividly that Nantucket becomes its own character. Told in the third person, the novel follows Keely as she navigates coming-of-age, changing friendships, romance, and caring for an ailing parent. The author also sheds a bright light on some of the difficulties inherent in the writer’s life, including loneliness and constant self-doubt. Told in a plot-focused, accessible prose, the novel appears at first to be a light read, but it deals artfully with heavier issues, including guilt, envy, and forgiveness.
An engaging tale about how childhood expectations can be transformed on the journey through adulthood.Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9872-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so,...
A tenacious reporter won’t let personal ties to a decades-old case stop her from finding the truth.
On the advice of her agent, Savannah Sentinel reporter and author Nikki Gillette is looking for fodder for her latest true-crime novel when she realizes that the perfect subject is about to be released from prison. Savannah’s notorious Blondell O’Henry has been locked up for some 20 years for the murder of her oldest daughter and Nikki’s childhood friend, Amity. Now that Blondell’s son Niall has recanted the testimony that put her away all those years ago, it looks as if she’ll be a free woman unless Nikki’s fiance, Detective Pierce Reed, can find a reason to keep her detained. Pierce and Nikki both work to discover what happened years ago at that cabin in the woods, though Pierce bridles at Nikki’s rather unconventional—all right, illegal—research methods. It seems to Nikki that the more she investigates, the more connections she discovers to her own family, beginning with the fact that her Uncle Alex was the original defense attorney on the case. But all of these uncomfortable connections make Nikki still more determined to learn the truth, even if she doesn’t like what that may mean.
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so, Jackson (You Don’t Want to Know, 2012, etc.) shows a mastery of the true-crime thriller formula that will please fans.Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-5858-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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