Dev takes the characters and the reader on a death-defying ride. A novelist at the height of her powers.
Mystery, adventure, and romance are spiced with Bollywood glamour in this heart-stopping novel.
Nikhil Joshi, an Indian-American cruise-ship doctor, is drowning his sorrows in Jack Daniel’s. Two years earlier, his pregnant wife, Jen, a physician working in a Mumbai slum for Doctors Without Borders, was murdered before his eyes; unbeknownst to her husband, Jen was working to expose an illegal organ-transplant enterprise committing gruesome “murders to carve out organs.” Suddenly, Jess Koirala, a beautiful Bollywood dancer, appears in Nikhil’s life with an uncanny knowledge of Jen and the circumstances of their marriage. Jess tells Nikhil that she can channel Jen because she received Jen’s heart in a transplant; she even shows him the scar on her chest from the operation. Nikhil becomes obsessed with her and her intimate knowledge of his life. But Jess is being blackmailed by Jen’s killers into pursuing Nikhil to find the incriminating evidence that Jen was murdered for; her blackmailers are even terrorizing her 7-year-old son in order to force her to cooperate. Soon, Jess is being hunted down by both the Mumbai mob and the police, who are racing to find the damning evidence. Will Nikhil fall into the extortionist’s web and become involved with gorgeous Jess or wake up and smell the chai? Will Jess be able to extract the location of Jen’s evidence from Nikhil and save her son’s life, or will she weaken in the face of Nikhil’s overpowering charisma? Dev (The Bollywood Bride, 2015, etc.) masterfully probes Jess' and Nikhil’s rawest emotions through her multilayered Rubik’s cube of a plot. Every time the reader thinks he or she has figured out the end of the novel, the story’s quick-paced narrative, which races back and forth from the U.S. to India, takes another hairpin turn, leaving the reader breathless. This is riveting, heart-pounding drama.
Dev takes the characters and the reader on a death-defying ride. A novelist at the height of her powers.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0574-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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