Marrow, arm-candy wife to rapper/actor Ice-T, and co-author Hayden, who teamed up with presidential daughter Susan Ford on her novel, ask readers to suspend their belief in what’s real and what’s not in this fantasy/romance.
Angela Sands is the “Angel of the Hudson.” She received her nickname after surviving a harrowing plane crash into the Hudson River that killed everyone aboard but her and a tiny baby. After rescuing the infant, Angela herself needs help getting to dry land and finds it in the guise of reporter Dante Kearns, who is shooting a story on a nearby ferry. Dante jumps into the water to save Angela, and the two begin a relationship that starts as reporter/subject but ends up evolving into something much more interesting. Angela has a perplexing problem: She can’t remember anything about her past. She also has some disturbing talents: With the exception of Dante, she “hears” men’s thoughts; she involuntarily devolves into their ideal woman; and she has both super strength and a voracious sexual appetite. After the plane crash, airline executives dump Angela into a mental-health facility, where she starts remembering things about a former life, even as she thwarts a rape plot by two workers. After leaving, she reestablishes her friendship with Dante, and the two begin to work through her issues, which include homelessness, unemployment and murky memories of the recent murder of a wealthy socialite. Together, Marrow and Hayden have constructed a universe in which evil corporations get away with abusing victims and no one finds a woman who can change shape at will more than a passing oddity. Rather than a cohesive tale that propels the fanciful story along in a logical sequence, this is a collection of loosely strung-together situations that allow the protagonist to show her dark side. An inconsistent and unsatisfying narrative that offers neither compelling characterization nor believable situations. The upshot: A pointless plot delivered in humdrum prose.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2709-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
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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