Secrets, rejection, and betrayal are no match for the powers of forgiveness in this charming novel.
Estate planner Grace Adams has always been good at writing the ending to anyone's life story. That is, until her husband and business partner, Brian, asks for a divorce. How will her story end now?
Fox (Out of Practice, 2016, etc.) debuts a new series with this novel, which channels a little Under the Tuscan Sky meets Auntie Mame. Grace has always done what's right for her family. After her father left when she was only 14, Grace stood by her mother's side. She returned from college not only to take over the family law firm, but also, later, to take care of her mother in her final days. Despite their having been best friends since childhood, it hits Brian hard to discover that Grace can't have children. Discovering that Brian has reconnected with his ex-girlfriend Angelica, that she's pregnant, and that she's moved into the house Grace vacated only months ago hits Grace hard. But that's when Grace finds a postcard inviting her mother to Cypress Key, a paradisiacal small town in Florida. Hoping to turn over a new leaf—or at least run away from the shame of having covered Brian's car in birdseed—Grace calls the number on the postcard to discover that she has an octogenarian Great Aunt Millie who’s delighted to have her come visit. The local matchmaker, vibrant Millie introduces Grace to local beaches and the joys of both meditation and boxing. Meanwhile, Jason Davis, the charming owner of a local hotel, introduces Grace back to her own heart. Yet discovering why Grace's family shut Millie out of their lives decades earlier may break Grace's heart anew.
Secrets, rejection, and betrayal are no match for the powers of forgiveness in this charming novel.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63511-288-7
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Henery Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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