A wholesome and uplifting tale of second chances and gourmet mac and cheese, perfect for romantic foodies.
A novel offers a contemporary romance about a young, widowed mother who surprises herself when she starts to fall for her brother’s longtime best friend.
Ewens (Taste: A Love Story, 2015, etc.) introduces heroine Makenna Rye Conroy five years after her husband’s untimely death. Makenna is raising their daughter on her own and making ends meet by working in her brother’s trendy California restaurant, known as The Yard. She finally feels that she has gotten her life back to a stable, comfortable place where she can relax and focus on her daughter. Yet one night she experiences an unsettling dream about her brother’s closest friend, Travis McNulty, and suddenly, her focus shifts almost entirely to him. While Makenna manages the finances at the restaurant, Travis, one of the head chefs, exhibits a talent and passion for exquisite dishes. Despite the fact that she has worked side by side with Travis for quite some time, his appearance in her dreams makes her wonder if her mild attraction to him actually runs deeper. The reader learns that Travis has a long-held hankering for Makenna, but he never fancied the feelings would be returned. When he finally sees an opening into Makenna’s life, he doesn’t want to let the opportunity pass. As she and Travis grow closer, Makenna worries that their relationship will upset the delicate balance she has finally achieved between toiling at the restaurant and raising her daughter. Through many compelling scenes at the restaurant, Makenna’s family farm, and even the fussy private school her daughter attends, Ewens shows the central couple dancing in circles around each other for much of the tale. All the while, the author peppers the book with unique details about the restaurant where the pair works, the trendy and singular dishes served, and the quirky clientele. The story’s pacing is fast and engaging, and romantic suspense should keep readers turning pages. Although readers will likely predict the tale’s outcome, the couple’s journey is worth following.
A wholesome and uplifting tale of second chances and gourmet mac and cheese, perfect for romantic foodies.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9908571-7-4
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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