Funny, deep, and romantic as hell. Will leave you smiling for days.
Can a bearded, romance-reading, retired rugby pro convince a Type A grad student to make room for love?
Zafir Ansari has been through hell and come out the other side. Seven years ago, his professional rugby career was cut short when he lost his brother and father in a car accident and sank into a clinical depression. Today, he works security at a university while volunteering for a youth rugby team and building his nonprofit, Tackle It, to help destigmatize mental illness and teach coping skills to young athletes. He has a major crush on workaholic, hyperrational Ph.D. student Danika Brown, who teaches in his building, but Zaf is pretty sure she's gay. They become a social media sensation thanks to a viral video of Zaf carrying pink-haired Dani to safety after an elevator mishap. Zafir asks Dani to pretend they're a couple to gain exposure for his charity, and the temporary arrangement is perfect for Dani, who is bi and only does “situationships” anyway. While bantering hilariously and having sex whenever possible, they both catch feelings, but Danika buries hers. As for Zaf, “his feelings for Dani were like sunlight: they’d always find a crack to slip through, a way to light things up.” Zafir treads carefully, introducing balance to Danika's life with home-cooked meals and insanely hot sex. Dani’s support helps Zaf reclaim his minor celebrity as a Muslim former pro rugby player (a rarity in Britain) and share publicly the personal tragedy that led him to found Tackle It. With Danika, Hibbert playfully subverts expectations, elevating the “too busy for romance” trope by giving her challenging personality traits that won’t disappear with a good shag and a few “I love you”s. She also wisely gives Zafir more to do than love Dani unconditionally, as deliciously swoonworthy as that is: He has to embrace his tragic past, as it's part of the man he is today.
Funny, deep, and romantic as hell. Will leave you smiling for days.Pub Date: June 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294123-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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