A modern love story with an absorbing, unique take on May-December relationships.
A 40-year-old widow falls for her 23-year-old neighbor in this debut contemporary romance.
In her first foray into fiction, Coventry presents a sympathetic heroine confronted by forbidden love. Samantha Sullivan lives alone in suburban Michigan, where she’s been quietly grieving her deceased husband for nearly five years. But when her attractive, young neighbor Jason Grant returns to his parents’ house from college for the summer, she’s stunned by his good looks. As they chat over the backyard fence, she feels the first stirrings of her libido since before she lost her husband. She tries to laugh off her fantasies about the much younger man, but it quickly becomes clear that Jason feels an attraction to her, too. With wisdom well beyond his tender years, he convinces her that she should give their budding relationship a chance. The two quickly become close during a series of very private and steamy dates. However, Sam is frightened about how others will perceive their relationship and tries to keep it secret despite Jason’s objections. When he finally tells his parents about Sam, his mother gives her a cold reception, which Sam interprets as a harbinger of what’s to come. Sam soon attempts to extricate herself from the relationship, pushing Jason to accept an internship in Denver that could result in a permanent job. Although she thinks she’s falling in love with him, her fear of social rejection may prevent them from ever having a chance. As Coventry describes the complex issues of age and love that Jason and Sam must navigate, she also touches on other weighty topics, such as grief, friendship, and emotional renewal. She tells the story at a fast clip, building the suspense in a way that will keep even the most experienced romance fans engaged. The story artfully explores the difficulties inherent in unconventional relationships without skimping on steamy sex scenes. Although the tale’s trajectory is somewhat predictable, readers should enjoy Coventry’s witty narrative style, complex characters, and knack for flirtatious dialogue.
A modern love story with an absorbing, unique take on May-December relationships.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-64822-3
Page Count: 346
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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