This thoroughly enjoyable novel delivers a swift kick to the heart—an essential summer read.
A female private detective tackles a retired NFA player in this standout romance, the eighth in the bestselling author’s Chicago Stars series.
A champion quarterback with a Super Bowl ring to prove it, entrepreneur Cooper Graham is just as competitive in business as he used to be on the field. Piper Dove, the daughter of a private detective, is determined to follow in her father’s footsteps as the new owner of her family’s detective agency. The two meet at Coop’s Chicago nightclub, Spiral, where Piper is investigating Coop on behalf of a potential business partner when she’s mistaken for a stalker. To keep from blowing her cover, she plays along. But when Coop finds out the truth, he discovers that his alleged stalker might be exactly the person he needs to investigate suspicious activity at his club. Their instant chemistry ignites an already explosive situation at Spiral, where any number of disgruntled employees and fans might be the saboteurs behind attacks ranging from bad online reviews to drone surveillance. But each one is written with enough levity to make it feel like a challenge rather than a nightmare come true. Whether she’s fending off football groupies or disarming a neighbor who threatens her with a Nerf gun, Piper is endearingly nutty and complicated. She thinks Coop would be better off dating a beauty with a trust fund; all he really wants is a woman he can trust. As she tries to take the moral high road by protecting him, she ends up lowering her standards by lying and sneaking around. And although Coop is gifted with both charm and brute strength, his constant need to win his arguments with Piper thankfully makes him seem more human rather than too perfect or, worse, overbearing.
This thoroughly enjoyable novel delivers a swift kick to the heart—an essential summer read.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-240561-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so,...
A tenacious reporter won’t let personal ties to a decades-old case stop her from finding the truth.
On the advice of her agent, Savannah Sentinel reporter and author Nikki Gillette is looking for fodder for her latest true-crime novel when she realizes that the perfect subject is about to be released from prison. Savannah’s notorious Blondell O’Henry has been locked up for some 20 years for the murder of her oldest daughter and Nikki’s childhood friend, Amity. Now that Blondell’s son Niall has recanted the testimony that put her away all those years ago, it looks as if she’ll be a free woman unless Nikki’s fiance, Detective Pierce Reed, can find a reason to keep her detained. Pierce and Nikki both work to discover what happened years ago at that cabin in the woods, though Pierce bridles at Nikki’s rather unconventional—all right, illegal—research methods. It seems to Nikki that the more she investigates, the more connections she discovers to her own family, beginning with the fact that her Uncle Alex was the original defense attorney on the case. But all of these uncomfortable connections make Nikki still more determined to learn the truth, even if she doesn’t like what that may mean.
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so, Jackson (You Don’t Want to Know, 2012, etc.) shows a mastery of the true-crime thriller formula that will please fans.Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-5858-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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