A complex and ambitious adventure for lovers of ancient historical romance.
Screenwriter Collins’ debut novel tells the origin story of the legendary St. Valentine.
In the year 268, a handsome 26-year-old soldier, Valentinus Romanus, known as “Valentine,” saves the empress from an Alemanni attack. After the battle, he reminisces about his first love, a girl whom he knew as Rose, while drunkenly sleeping with Serena, the wife of a Roman magistrate. From the beginning, Valentine is a romantic and a deep thinker with strong morals, which results in him helping a beautiful maiden named Agatha—who turns out to be none other than his long-lost love. Things quickly become even more complicated. After a battle injury, Valentine is taken by Marius, his friend and fellow soldier, to a villa in Arretium to recover. There, he becomes fascinated by the physician of the villa, Deodatus, and his wife, Charu; he's soon Deodatus’ apprentice and learns of the doctor’s practice of marrying Christian couples in secret. Collins’ novel tries to make sense of the historical sources for what might have been the life story of the original Valentine; a long list of those he consulted appears at the back of the book, displaying his commitment to documentation. His book also portrays the treacherous ambition of Roman leadership and their persecution of Christianity. Roman general Claudius’ path to becoming Emperor remains compelling, especially in how it contrasts with Valentine’s more heroic character. Although readers may find the political machinations to be a bit difficult to follow, the novel is full of well-paced drama that will keep them hooked to the end. In particular, the romance between Agatha and Valentine will surely warm hearts: “As they were illuminated by the moon’s glow, their kiss felt like the culmination of their shared history, a perfect union where every moment of their lives had led to this one.”
A complex and ambitious adventure for lovers of ancient historical romance.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798991362405
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.
Two ambitious athletes plus one fake-dating arrangement—what could go wrong?
Though it’s only his first season for the Boston Bearcats hockey team, Robbie Corrigan has a well-established reputation as a playboy. He’s got major skills on the ice, and he’s also much more likely to love ’em and leave ’em than he is to build any long, meaningful relationships. Naturally, he’s just met the one woman who seems completely resistant to his charm: Skylar Page, a Boston University softball pitcher. When they meet over a friendly Saturday morning baseball game, Robbie instantly makes a poor impression by bragging to his teammates about his latest conquest within Skylar’s hearing. He thinks she’s gorgeous, though, and when he sets his sights on her, he’s surprised that she doesn’t seem to know it. Despite her initial distaste for Robbie, Skylar grudgingly confesses that she could use his help. If they pretend to date, maybe her current crush—her brother’s best friend—will finally sit up and take notice of her in a romantic way. The timing is less than ideal, since Robbie will have to team up with Skylar in the Page family’s latest wilderness competition, but it turns out that Robbie’s willingness to play fake boyfriend stems from some very real feelings. He wants to prove to her that he’s a changed man, and redeeming himself in her eyes starts with making sure she knows that she can really trust him. The latest addition to Bailey’s Big Shots series is a sexy, feel-good romance brimming over with the author’s trademark humor and dirty talk. While Skylar and Robbie’s dynamic doesn’t quite reach the level of enemies-to-lovers—he’s so head-over-heels for her that there’s no room for any real mean-spiritedness—their playful snark doubles as a welcome dash of foreplay in the lead-up to some seriously steamy scenes. Robbie’s efforts to show Skylar that he’s turned over a new leaf also result in some of the book’s best moments, emphasizing his commitment to becoming the type of man he knows she deserves.
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780063380837
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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