Unexceptional but appealing, especially to readers looking for less sex in their contemporary romance.
When rock star Matt Reed is hounded and ridiculed by the press, causing him to question his talent and his future, he takes refuge at his childhood best friend’s house, in the hometown he swore he’d never go back to, and winds up in love with his friend's younger sister, Vivienne.
On the night the hugely successful band Shaughnessy plays its last concert before a well-earned hiatus, lead guitarist Matt starts drinking early, which helps him forget that Vivienne Forrester showed up in his dressing room and that they shared a sizzling kiss before his manager dragged them apart and had security throw her out. Two years later, Matt is humiliated when a Broadway show he headlined closes practically before it begins. Not ready to face a hostile press corps, Matt accepts his friend Aaron’s invitation to hide out at his house in North Carolina; it was an easy decision since Aaron travels a lot and Matt won’t feel like he's underfoot. When he arrives, he learns that Vivienne is preparing to move into the property’s guest cottage—which she’s built into her dream home to support her career as a food blogger and online magazine editor—but is surprised by her frosty attitude. Helping her move into the cottage and then working with her on a food-based project throws Matt together with her often, and their obvious attraction flares up again, leading to another kiss, reminding him of the first one two years ago. Vivienne and Matt each have family issues to work through, complicated by a disapproving Aaron. Chase spins off her popular Shaughnessy Brothers (This Is Our Song, 2016, etc.) series to explore the wounded Shaughnessy band members, starting with Matt and a story that’s sweet, generally satisfying, and relatively chaste for contemporary romance. However, much of the action is mundane, the linear storytelling blunts the emotional intensity, and the characters’ lack of communication gets irritating.
Unexceptional but appealing, especially to readers looking for less sex in their contemporary romance.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-1640-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
An effective infomercial—and guest-room sleep-aid—for Inn BoonsBoro.
In Roberts’ new series launch, the conversion of a tumbledown Maryland hotel into a boutique country inn fails to expel an extremely shy resident ghost.
The first half of the novel, essentially an extended prologue, is painstakingly slow. As Roberts demonstrates a newfound passion for construction minutia (perhaps because she renovated and owns Inn Boonsboro in real life), the activities of architect Beckett Montgomery and his two builder brothers as they retrofit a historic building in Boonsboro (near the Antietam battlefield) unfold almost in real time. Working under the supervision of their benevolent tyrant of a mother, the brothers exchange good-natured macho gibes as they appoint the Inn-to-be with the most opulent tile, woodwork and fixtures. Amid all the bromance, Beckett watches longingly as his crush since grade school, Clare, goes about running her amazingly profitable independent bookstore while raising three unruly boys alone. (Her soldier husband died in Iraq.) Does she or doesn’t she notice him, Beckett muses ad infinitum. Meanwhile, Clare tells herself that Beckett is not really interested, just being kind to a war widow. Once this minor miscommunication is cleared up, the two begin a tentative relationship, however, the necessity of introducing obstacles to true love has Roberts stretching for things for them to squabble about, including the sighting by Clare’s youngest son of a ghostly lady dressed in an old-timey long gown, staring from an upper story window of the Inn. (The ghost, nicknamed “Lizzy,” has betrayed her presence to Beckett and a few others only with a scent of honeysuckle and a penchant for opening doors.) Cartoonish villain Sam, the spoiled, indolent son of the area’s wealthiest family, stalks Clare and tries to take indecent liberties, but his belated appearance, and his failure to pose a believable threat, do little to propel the plot. The fictional doppelganger of Boonsboro is an anachronistic bubble, seemingly untouched by the blight besetting so many American small towns.
An effective infomercial—and guest-room sleep-aid—for Inn BoonsBoro.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-425-24321-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a...
An unhappily married couple spends a year apart in Reid’s (Forever, Interrupted, 2013) novel about second chances.
When we meet Lauren, she and her husband, Ryan, are having a meltdown trying to find their car in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium after a game. Through a series of flashbacks, Lauren reveals how the two of them went from being inseparable to being insufferable in each other’s eyes—and in desperate need of a break. Both their courtship and their fights seem so ordinary—they met in college; he doesn’t like Greek food—that the most heartbreaking part of their pending separation is deciding who will get custody of their good-natured dog. It’s not until Ryan moves out that the juicy details emerge. Lauren surreptitiously logs into his email one day, in a fit of missing him, and discovers a bunch of emails to her that he had saved but not sent. Liberated by Ryan’s candor, Lauren saves her replies for him to find, and the two of them read each other’s unfiltered thoughts as they go about their separate lives. Neither character holds anything back, which makes the healing process more complex, and more compelling, than simply getting revenge or getting one’s groove back. Meanwhile, as Lauren spends more time with her family and friends, she explores the example set for her by her parents and learns that there are many ways to be happy. It’s never clear until the final pages whether living alone will bring Lauren and Ryan back together or force them apart forever. But when the year is up, the resolution is neither sappy nor cynical; it’s arrived at after an honest assessment of what each partner can’t live with and can’t live without.
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a committed relationship.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1284-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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