With its touching best-friends-to-lovers arc, the novel is both sexy and poignant.
When Abby’s fiance dumps her weeks before the wedding, her best friend Zach wonders if it’s finally time to risk everything and tell her how he really feels.
Best friends Abigale Applegate and Zach Barnes were child stars of a hit sitcom in the ’90s. Now in their early 30s, the two have left Hollywood behind for good, relocating to Tucson where Abby runs her own catering company and Zach owns a tattoo parlor. Abby attempts to control her life to the smallest detail, but her Grand Plan is derailed when her fiance dumps her. At first devastated, Abby comes to understand that she feels more disappointed that the plan failed than upset that Roger left her. Zach gives Abby a freestyle-approach journal, encouraging her to relax and live life a little more spontaneously. Abby comes up with a new goal list that includes some out-of-the-box tasks, one of which is to have a torrid affair. But once she sets the goal, she is disconcerted to realize the person she’d most like to fill the role of wild lover is none other than her best friend, Zach. Zach is happy to oblige, since he’s secretly been in love with Abby as long as he’s known her. The chemistry between them is suddenly scorching, but how do you explain to the girl you love that you want forever when it seems she’s asked for a quick, hot fling? And has Zach jeopardized the very special something they already have for an uncertain chance at everything he wants? Walker’s newest stand-alone title is compelling and will especially satisfy fans of the best-friend-risks-it-all-for-love storyline. There are a number of details that add interesting texture and layers to the plot—the free-form journal, for instance, as well as Abby and Zach’s past as child stars—though some of these elements might have been fleshed out more and will occasionally leave the audience feeling as if some loose ends remain untied. Also, occasional egregiously vulgar language may turn some readers off. Overall, though, a successful romance and a good read.
Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-425-26445-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley Sensation
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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