Feels more like a prolonged improv sketch than a meaningful, comedic romance.
A romance-wary divorcée falls for fresh blood in New Orleans: a pediatric oncologist who's given up on medicine.
Following the death of his mother from cancer and the particularly heartbreaking loss of a patient , Dr. Daniel LeDeux leaves Alaska for New Orleans after discovering that his long-lost father has Cajun roots. Turning his back on medicine for the time being, Daniel hopes meeting members of his family he never knew about will be the perfect distraction and a fresh start. Samantha Starr is rich, with stock in her family company and almost $2 million in gold bullion (a gift from her grandfather) in a safe-deposit box, and she’s in the midst of a particularly nasty divorce from a verbally abusive, gold-digging doctor of an ex-husband. Samantha swears off doctors, and Daniel has no time for rich, entitled women, but Daniel’s meddling aunt, Tante Lulu, knows a perfect match when she sees one. The Cajun accents are inescapable and border on cartoonish; readers will certainly never forget this is set in the bayous of New Orleans. Meanwhile, Sam’s ex-husband is a one-dimensional villain whose cruelty undermines the sillier elements of the story, like an aunt obsessed with the color pink and a pot-bellied pig desperately in need of an antidepressant. Fans of Hill’s writing (Good Vampires Go to Heaven, 2016, etc.) will find the nonsensical banter and caricatured cast par for the course, but newcomers may find the over-the-top absurdity of the romance to be laid on rather thick. The central conflict is thin at best, with Daniel judging Samantha too harshly, Sam assuming that all doctors are money-hungry, and Samantha’s ex-husband willing to do anything, graduating from spreading misogynistic rumors to issuing threats to pulling a gun on Samantha, in order keep receiving his alimony payments.
Feels more like a prolonged improv sketch than a meaningful, comedic romance.Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-256636-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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