There are too many points in the book that stretch the plot and characters from beyond believable to just plain silly.
A Southern beekeeper moves to Manhattan and causes quite a buzz in a honey-coated, hard-to-swallow romance.
Self-exiled Sugar Wallace flits from one location to the next with her bees, a blue ceramic birdbath and two gardenias in tow, but she only alights long enough to help others heal from their emotional and physical ills. But Sugar doesn’t choose each new place at random: Her queen bee, Elizabeth the Sixth, crawls around on a map and designates the next stop. Sugar’s move to NYC begins with an almost calamitous collision on her new street, but the two men involved, attractive Scotsman Theo Fitzgerald and elderly George Wainwright, are fine. When she reaches out to ensure they’re OK, Sugar’s drawn to Theo like a bee to honey, which disconcerts her. Betty (Sugar’s pet name for Elizabeth the Sixth), too, feels something and finally realizes she has more purpose in life than just being a queen bee and reproducing. Sugar settles into her new apartment building, sets up her beekeeping on the roof, and, searching for a cup of (what else?) sugar, meets her unhappy neighbors: the single-mother owner of a failing balloon shop, an anorexic girl who collects wedding announcements, an older man whose only joy is his flat-screen TV, a woman who complains about everyone, and a shy, plump baker. Sugar spreads her honey-laden products among her fellow tenants, invites them to her place and gently sticks her nose into their beeswax. She also has long soul-searching conversations with George (who becomes the building’s volunteer doorman, thanks to Sugar) and runs into Theo at the local Greenmarket. Although Theo pursues Sugar, every meeting results in some stinging misunderstanding, which sends Sugar fleeing in the opposite direction. When Sugar finally tells George what’s bothering her, Betty and her worker bees swarm into action, and Sugar learns things about her neighbors she never suspected. Southerners might not take too kindly to the bizarre portrait Lynch (Dolci di Love, 2011, etc.) has painted of Sugar and her bees as the story moves beyond stereotypical—unsophisticated Sugar always wears ribbons in her hair, concocts honeyed cure-alls for every ailment and drips with starry-eyed optimism—to farcical—Betty schemes to unite Sugar and Theo by leading the swarm back and forth between Sugar’s rooftop and Theo’s as Sugar gives chase.
There are too many points in the book that stretch the plot and characters from beyond believable to just plain silly.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-225260-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As the plot grows more complicated, it also sheds believability, leaving sex and witty banter to carry the day.
Brown (Mean Streak, 2014, etc.) ticks off the boxes that elevate her books to the bestseller lists in this sexy romantic thriller set in Texas.
Rock-jawed hero with a dark past: check. Strong-willed, beautiful woman who resists his charms: check. A Whitman’s Sampler of bad guys: check. And finally, a convoluted and not always plausible plot: check. In this latest outing, readers meet TV journalist Kerra Bailey, whose family was torn apart years ago by a hotel bombing that killed 197 people in Dallas. Just in time for the 25th anniversary, Kerra scores an interview with the notoriously private Maj. Trapper, who saved her life, among others, when he emerged from the blast to lead the survivors out of danger. There's an iconic, prizewinning photo of the major carrying a little girl from the wreckage, but the child has never been identified—until now, when Kerra goes public with the information that it was her. Just after they finish filming the interview in his home, the major is shot, and an injured Kerra escapes in the confusion. The major’s son, disgraced Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Trapper—a name M*A*S*H fans will appreciate—steps in, igniting a chain of events that leads to murder, intrigue, betrayal, and a series of dark revelations. As with most of Brown’s heroes and heroines, there’s palpable sexual tension between Trapper, whose taut rear occupies ample literary real estate, and Kerra, who when dealing with Trapper feels “like he’d lightly scratched her just below her bellybutton” when he’s not making her “pleasure points throb.” The complex plot plays out in a round of reveals that don’t always make a lot of sense, but that’s not why Brown’s fans read her books. They check in for the witty, pitch-perfect dialogue and fluid writing. A master of her genre, Brown knows how to please her most ardent readers but relies too often on the same basic formula from novel to novel.
As the plot grows more complicated, it also sheds believability, leaving sex and witty banter to carry the day.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7210-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Less chick-lit beach read than old-fashioned Joan Crawford tearjerker.
In Hilderbrand’s fifth Nantucket novel (The Blue Bistro, 2005, etc.), a vacationing college student arranges to meet with her mysterious godmother, a former restaurateur of renown, to learn more about her dead mother.
Despite ambivalence, 19-year-old Columbia sophomore Renata has become engaged to Cade. While visiting his wealthy family at their Nantucket summer home, she calls her godmother Marguerite and arranges to have dinner. Renata wants to know more about her mother Candace, who died on the island 14 years earlier. Renata does not realize that Marguerite was so overcome by guilt and despair after Candace’s death that she had a psychotic break, sold her very successful restaurant and has been living for years as an island recluse. The novel follows Renata and Marguerite’s lives hour by hour throughout the day leading up to the dinner Marguerite prepares for them. While shopping for the meal, Marguerite visits key people from her past who force her to relive what happened years earlier: how she met her long-time, part-time lover Porter, and through him his half-sister Candace, who became her dearest friend; how Candace fell in love and married Dan, owner of the Beach Club; how they had Renata and moved away; how in a moment of despair after Porter’s final rejection, Marguerite declared her love for Candace; how shortly thereafter Candace was hit by a drunk driver while jogging. Meanwhile, Renata is struggling against Cade’s insufferable mother and against her own attraction to the handsome houseboy. She calls her father to announce her engagement, subconsciously knowing Dan will come to the rescue. He does, but not before Renata has come face to face with near tragedy and run away to Marguerite, leaving Cade’s engagement ring behind. Dan, Marguerite and Renata finally reunite, truths are told and old wounds healed.
Less chick-lit beach read than old-fashioned Joan Crawford tearjerker.Pub Date: June 30, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-32230-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
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