A light but satisfying love story perfect for fans of beer, medicine, and second chances.
A contemporary romance follows a single dad and the self-sufficient doctor who catches his eye while she tries to escape her own checkered past.
Ewens (Exposure, 2017, etc.) opens her tale as Boyd McNaughton, brew master at Foghorn Brewery, attempts to perfect a new flavor of beer. He cuts his hand on a device called a keggle, whereupon he rushes himself to Petaluma Valley Hospital and meets Dr. Ella Walters, a beautiful physician. Days later, Boyd’s teen son, Mason, meets his dad at the hospital when he’s getting his stitches removed. Mason is focused more on his search for love advice about a girl at school than on his father’s injury. When Ella chimes in on the father-son conversation with some romantic tips of her own for Mason, an immediate bond is forged between Ella and the boy, and Boyd’s curiosity is piqued. Following their first meeting, Boyd tries to suppress his interest in Ella, determining that he shouldn’t disrupt the calm life he has built for himself and Mason by introducing a woman into the mix. Unfortunately, it seems as though he is suddenly running into Ella everywhere around town, and it is impossible for him to push her from his thoughts. Ella is wary of Boyd, especially in light of the turbulent relationship she left behind in her hometown of Los Angeles. Even so, she can’t seem to prevent herself from being drawn to Boyd—and Mason too. As Boyd and Ella try to work through their own baggage, the reader can enjoy the ride, watching them wend their ways toward each other. Despite a predictable plot strand, Ewens manages to create page-turning romantic suspense. A seemingly airy tale, the story still tackles many weighty issues, from parental abandonment to the difficulty of establishing lasting interpersonal connections. With a fast-paced narrative and the deft employment of an unlikely couple, a device that seems to have become the author’s hallmark, the book provides an entertaining tale that is as insightful as it is flirtatious.
A light but satisfying love story perfect for fans of beer, medicine, and second chances.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9976838-7-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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