Sex, booze and R&B get in bed together in this fast-paced story of the sordid life of a successful manager in the music industry.
Veteran author White (The Teflon Queen PT3, 2014, etc.) has established his bona fides with his Tears of a Hustler series, Teflon Queen series and various stand-alone titles. In his latest work, the unlucky Yolanda feels her heart breaking every time she’s confronted with evidence of another one of boyfriend Cam’s infidelities. She tries to comfort herself by believing that she’s his main squeeze and that the other women are just flings, but rising R&B singer Honey thinks she’s his primary woman and that Yolanda is just another one of his lady friends. Cam would love to keep both women as steady relationships while still seeking pleasure wherever he can find it; alluring R&B superstar-in-the-making Bambi is definitely one of those pleasures. But when Cam’s ladies start turning up dead or seriously injured, the police can’t help but be suspicious of him. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Cam, he faces deadly danger from an unexpected quarter, and he’ll be forced to confront his own mortality when explosive secrets are revealed. Pacing is swift, with sex, violence or both detailed on most pages. The raw, profanity-laden dialogue has the ring of authenticity, as does overall character development. Plot twists are plentiful, though they start to twist a bit too far as the story wears on. And while grammatical errors make the dialogue sing, they and the pervasive spelling and punctuation errors are less appealing in the main text (e.g., “Trouble fumed as him, Snow, and the rest of the crew road down on the elevator”). Convoluted or repetitive sentence structures further detract, as when White writes: “Before the two got a chance to get physical, a mutual friend stepped in and separated the two before things got violent.” Still, fans of the genre will find this a quick, enjoyable read with all the right touches.
A pulpy, action-packed page-turner.
Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0996060912
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Good2go Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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