A flirty love story and fun beach read.
A man and woman have both been down the aisle once before, but maybe the second time’s the charm in this romance.
It’s not every day that a gorgeous Greek man waltzes into Emma Murphy’s bookstore, A New Chapter. But she’s laid eyes on this particular hunk before. Zack Kostas was a groomsman at her cousin Phil’s wedding—one who inappropriately came on to her when they were both there with significant others. Now, five years later, Emma and Zack are licking their wounds after their respective divorces, and Zack has just moved back to town with his 4-year-old daughter, Gracie. Despite the mutual attraction, Emma and Zack agree to be just friends. But between a loaded conversation about casual sex while they unpack Zack’s bedroom and the night Emma gets plastered and wakes up to Zack cooking her breakfast in nothing but a pair of Superman boxers, plus a host of “friendly” hangouts, it finally boils over with a steamy kiss. Now, they must navigate a relationship fraught with questions: are they friends with benefits or something more? Is either of them ready for commitment? Is all of this fair to Gracie? It turns out that love is more complicated the second time around, and life is full of surprises. The book is well-paced, with just enough sexual tension and steamy scenes. Coventry’s (Custom Built for Me, 2017, etc.) prose is funny and sometimes-sassy, as when a well-endowed waitress who flirts with Zack is nicknamed “Booby.” Emma’s tenderness toward Gracie and her jealousy of Zack’s close-knit family (her own parents are fairly aloof) make her a sympathetic heroine. As a hero, Zack is the master of the grand gesture, as when he surprises Emma in Chicago after she has flown there for a trade show. The supporting characters are solid, from Kelly, Emma’s best friend and a serial dater who invents personalities for her suitors based on their preferred book genres, to Mike, a hapless UPS delivery guy who can never muster the courage to ask Emma on a date. Overall, this is a lighthearted and satisfying tale.
A flirty love story and fun beach read.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5399-6783-5
Page Count: 332
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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