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THE CHRISTMAS PROMISE

Cozy up to a crackling fireplace with your Christmas cookies and eggnog and enjoy this holiday treat.

A surviving twin falls for a mystery man in this Yuletide love story.

Growing up in Utah, identical twins Michelle and Richelle Bach, or Micki and Ricki, had been virtually indistinguishable in appearance but had different personalities. Micki was the fun one who’d barely squeaked through high school, needing help from Ricki, the class salutatorian and the story’s narrator, to even graduate. Dad gave each a gorgeous black opal worth 15 grand as a graduation present. (Opaleeze, who does that?) Later, the twins had become estranged after Ricki found Micki in bed with Ricki's fiance. Later still, Micki dies (the events are unconnected). Ricki is a dedicated pediatric ICU nurse and an aspiring writer. One day, a handsome stranger named Justin visits her Calliope Writers Group, and he appears to be wholesome as can be. He charms Micki with lines like, “I’ve always believed love should be a little reckless. Sometimes a lot.” And so they fall in love, of course, but the road to bliss is fraught with uncertainty: Why did he come to Salt Lake? What’s his real interest in a writers group, given that he’s not a writer? Why does he keep leaving town and returning? “I guess when something looks delicious, we’re less inclined to check the ingredients,” she muses. That this is a Christmas-themed story suggests sugar rather than spice—Justin seems so gosh darned good—so let’s hope he lives up to his promise. Speaking of which, Ricki says, “I made my father a promise that I never fulfilled.” Love, forgiveness, and downright decency must try to overcome multiple betrayals and personal losses. The book’s best line is Ricki’s: “My question hung in the air like a piñata, just waiting to get smacked.” How much must she endure? The big twist near the end is either an eye-roller or heartwarming as the dickens, depending on one’s worldview, and it all leads up to a Christmas finale.

Cozy up to a crackling fireplace with your Christmas cookies and eggnog and enjoy this holiday treat.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-9821-7742-3

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.

Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Pub Date: July 30, 2024

ISBN: 9781250899576

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

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