Solid romantic suspense with strong characters and surprising plot twists.
A successful businessman uncovers dangerous family secrets and a long-lost love in this latest novel from Andre (Locked, Loaded, & Lying, 2015).
Devon Ashby grows up in Chicago, the eldest son of a prominent but emotionally distant businessman, Harrison Wickham. When Devon is 9, he discovers the body of his mother. Her death is ruled a suicide, but he’s convinced she was murdered. Determined to establish his own identity, he leaves home at 18 with $53 and bus tickets for himself and his high school sweetheart, Hannah Moore. Their intense relationship is the lifeline both need to cope with difficult families. He is devastated when Hannah chooses to stay to care for her dying mother. Twelve years later, Devon returns to make peace with Harrison and collect his trust fund. He discovers a family in shambles and the estate damaged by a mysterious fire. He’s shocked to discover Hannah’s company has been hired to restore the Wickham art collection. Their reunion sparks a long, simmering attraction that’s complicated by his company’s plans to tear down her apartment building. But when a second death occurs in the Wickham family home, Devon must face the ghosts of the past to protect himself and Hannah. Andre’s novel offers appealing lead characters and tightly plotted romantic suspense. Tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome, Devon could easily turn into a caricature of his ruthless and calculating father; however, carefully integrated flashbacks reveal the pain and heartbreak that drive his motivation to succeed in business and life. He meets his match in Hannah, a young woman with an equally tragic family background determined to build her own business and care for her elderly aunt. Their renewed attraction is instant but fraught with complications, including his development plan for Hannah’s neighborhood and engagement to another woman. Although their romance forms the cornerstone of Andre’s narrative, additional storylines involving the fire at the Wickham estate and Harrison’s sudden engagement to a mysterious woman are also well-developed despite a climax that’s slightly over the top.
Solid romantic suspense with strong characters and surprising plot twists.Pub Date: May 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975607-0-1
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Beach Reads
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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