by Tamara Herman Cindy Aronson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2015
An unevenly written but often entertaining romantic story.
A young woman must open up and face her past when she meets the man of her dreams in this melodramatic debut romance.
Twenty-two-year-old Lily Stone lives with her best friend in a smashing Toronto apartment and gets a job with the very best hipster magazine. Diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder, she often berates herself about her looks and has far more sex in her fantasies than in her bedroom. But when she meets the magazine’s handsome owner, Ryder Bishop, he falls head over heels for her. After he learns her name, he realizes that he knows her family from a past tragedy. Their elegant first date leads to deep kissing, but nothing more physical, and flashbacks reveal that Lily has a history of sexual abuse. However, a second date in Ryder’s decadent penthouse leads to pages upon pages of adverb-laden sex scenes. Lily feels safe enough to enjoy Ryder, but still dashes off in the morning for her therapy appointment. As the couple falls deeper in love, Lily opens up about her body and her past to both Ryder and her best friend, and both respond with compassion. But Ryder has yet to tell Lily his secret, which threatens to be exposed when Ryder’s estranged father is released from prison. Lily finally overhears the secret at a party, and the two lovebirds must weather to storm that follows. This story is a fun jaunt through the city’s classiest neighborhoods, with enough glitz and decadence to entertain. The melodrama that begins the novel (“Ryder gasped, clamouring for breath as if all the oxygen in his lungs had suddenly been removed”) eventually calms into a more compelling story. However, the book describes Lily’s body dysmorphia not so much by her experiences, but by clunkily repeating the disorder by name, along with long paragraphs of description. The story is more about Ryder than it is about Lily’s personal journey; she doesn’t learn to love herself so much as she’s relieved that someone so wonderful could love her. Overwritten descriptions threaten to capsize every sex scene (at one point, Ryder places Lily on his “sumptuous heathered graphite duvet”). However, the number of sex scenes is generous and, in the end, they don’t encumber the plot.
An unevenly written but often entertaining romantic story.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-51-707698-6
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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