Though grittier than the average Regency or Victorian romance, à la TV shows like Peaky Blinders, this is a new bottle with...
In the first novel of the Bareknuckle Bastards series, two outcasts meet at a glittering London ball but fall in love in the city’s darkest corners, beginning a saga that links a family across British society.
Devon “Devil” Culm, a rich crime lord and the oldest of a group of three half brothers born out of wedlock to a duke, is determined to stop one of them from breaking an old oath. When wallflower Lady Felicity Faircloth appears in his path, she seems to be the ideal instrument for his plan—till his attraction to her gets in the way. MacLean introduced Felicity as an aging debutante in The Day of the Duchess (2017) and awards her a cross-class romance in this novel. Though Felicity is the daughter of a marquess, a loss of popularity as she gets older prompts her to rashly tell her former friends at a society event that she's engaged to a reclusive duke. While her new “fiancé” has his own reasons for going along with her lie, she finds it impossible to commit to him after several intimate encounters with Devil in the rougher neighborhoods of London. While an aristocratic heroine who can easily slip away to meet a mystery man in a warehouse, a brothel, or a rooftop is not uncommon in the genre, the electric attraction that can help a reader ignore such implausibilities is not established convincingly enough at the start. This is partly because the backstory that can revitalize the novel's tropes—the hero who decides to use a woman for vengeance but loses his heart, the sheltered virgin who flouts convention and then discovers she’s been a pawn—isn’t fully clarified till the last quarter. As a result, the plot and characters’ motivations feel predictable and yet muddled. The climax and eventual resolution is satisfying but throws the weaknesses of the initial chapters into sharper relief.
Though grittier than the average Regency or Victorian romance, à la TV shows like Peaky Blinders, this is a new bottle with old wine—a Horatio Alger–style hero who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and a poor little rich Englishwoman whose problems amount to choosing between different wealthy suitors.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-269197-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
PERSPECTIVES
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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