An engrossing, if overstuffed, tale of heartbreak and forgiveness.
Dark secrets lead to pain, intrigue, and golf in this novel.
It’s 1973 in Charleston, South Carolina, and Eli Atkins is a high school senior with a lot going for him: a loving stepfather and younger brother; a beautiful girlfriend; and an offer to play minor league baseball after graduation. His mother has never shown him much affection because “she saw her ex-husband every time she saw Eli,” but his life is otherwise charmed. Then Eli’s girlfriend is murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. And although Eli’s mother could exonerate him, she coldly informs him that she will not be his alibi. Instead, despite his innocence, she pushes him to flee their home to spare the family further shame. Feeling unloved and unwanted, Eli turns to family friend Mrs. Babcock for help. With the aid of a well-connected, local businessman, the shrewd Mrs. Babcock devises a plan for Eli to flee the country and hide in the Bahamas. Eli slowly builds a new life for himself under an alias, but even in a beachy paradise, all he can think of is returning home and clearing his name. When he meets a one-legged Scottish golf pro named Lachlan McGregor and blossoms into a stellar player, things finally start to look up. Lachlan’s gorgeous niece, Rachel, also helps matters. But Eli’s golf talent brings him to the attention of a conniving fraudster, and his new life turns almost as messy as his old one. Will Eli ever be able to go home? In this ambitious tale, Attaway expertly evokes both the Lowcountry’s “moss-covered trees rising up from the swamps and grass islands” and the white beaches of the Bahamas. The many twists and turns of the book’s plot will keep readers engaged, although long sections of unnecessary backstory regarding relatively minor characters, such as the relatives of Mrs. Babcock’s son-in-law, occasionally cause the pace to drag. But for Pat Conroy fans who love golf, Attaway’s absorbing novel will be a hole in one.
An engrossing, if overstuffed, tale of heartbreak and forgiveness.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7354016-7-6
Page Count: 366
Publisher: Linksland Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Like your third serving of a delicious meal—still very good, but not much excitement left.
The Steele family’s three-volume St. John adventure comes to a poignant end.
As the author warns in the foreword, if you haven’t read the first two books of this trilogy (Winter in Paradise, 2018; What Happens in Paradise, 2019), don’t start here. If you have, read this one slowly, because at the end we'll be saying goodbye to the series' endearing cast of transplanted Midwesterners, their new friends in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the many wonderful bars, restaurants, estates, bungalows, beaches, and seafaring vessels they frequent. In truth, you may find a leisurely pace easier to maintain than usual. The confounding mysteries and shocking reversals that drove the first two installments are wrapped up here, but the answers are pretty much as expected, and no new excitement is introduced. Threads that could have added a plot boost—a high-powered New York lawyer hired to deal with the devastation Irene Steele suffers as a result of her dead husband’s criminal activity, the FBI investigation into same, an old diary, an unplanned pregnancy—play out gently, or are dropped, instead of picking up the momentum. Hilderbrand’s choice to tell us in the introductory note about her fictionalization of Hurricane Irma takes away any element of surprise that might have had, and she doesn’t use the disaster for much in the way of plot, anyway. Oh, well. There are still plenty of lemongrass sugar cookies and a gorgonzola Caesar with pork belly and wood-grilled sirloin, served with an expensive bottle of cabernet pulled from the cellar of some annoying rich people, reviving the old joke about wine descriptions one last time: “Notes of fire coral, DEET and the Tide Pod challenge.” Just like everything else in 2020, this is not quite what you had hoped for, but, on the other hand, the comfort of a Hilderbrand novel is never something to sneer at.
Like your third serving of a delicious meal—still very good, but not much excitement left.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-31643-558-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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