A sexy suspense novel despite some loose plot threads.
A traumatized Toronto heiress experiences new dangers and first love with a mysterious, covert operative in this debut romantic thriller.
In a prologue, Maddison Brooks muses upon being held captive seven years ago, after she startled a burglar who was likely after her green diamond Fabergé egg. After a shadowy figure freed her, she was put under psychiatric care by her rich Toronto businessman father and has since been plagued by visions that cause bleeding wounds on her body. In the present day, 22-year-old Maddison is on her way to meet her visiting older sister at a Toronto restaurant. Matthew Stoke, who’s getting ready for a covert assignment, spots Maddison, is struck by her beauty, and is shocked to learn her identity as the woman he once rescued. The couple has a brief yet powerful encounter, and Maddison is dazzled by his “money green” eyes. That night, she awakens to find Matthew in her house, and he saves her from arriving murderous thugs. He brings her to his home, where he witnesses one of her bleeding episodes. She loses her virginity to him, and the couple enjoys multiple bouts of mind-blowing sex. They also investigate the thugs, although Maddison chafes under Matthew’s protection, which includes security teams and surveillance. A blowout birthday party for Maddison’s father at the Metropolitan Museum of Art becomes the setting for a final, violent showdown. Author Brade turns up the heat in this first installment of a planned series, which includes many racy descriptions of the leading couple’s sexual fireworks, such as spanking and other love play (“He spanked me again, softer than before, but this time hungrier, his intensity stronger”). However, the book doesn’t fully explain the mystery of the missing egg, which takes a back seat to the romantic interludes, although the author may intend to connect the dots further in a follow-up. Overall, though, this is a rollicking, intriguing start.
A sexy suspense novel despite some loose plot threads.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9934306-0-2
Page Count: 446
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
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