The references to Oscar Wilde’s play are more of a tribute than a straight retelling, which keeps this hilarious and lively...
A group of friends performs a complicated ruse to help Lady Cassandra Monroe woo her cousin’s intended in this Regency romance that borrows liberally from The Importance of Being Earnest.
Bowman (The Unexpected Duchess, 2014, etc.) returns to her Playful Brides series with an aging debutante who secretly loves Capt. Julian Swift, the man who is all but engaged to her cousin Penelope. Julian has been at war for seven years, buoyed through the horrors of the battlefield by regular letters from Cass. Now he has returned to England, ready to seek out Penelope and tell her he can’t marry her after all. But Penelope, who doesn't want to marry him either, and thinks thinks he intends to formalize their engagement, invents a convenient friend in the country named Patience Bunbury and pretends to have gone to visit her in order to avoid seeing him. Meanwhile, Cassandra’s friend Lucy Hunt, the new Duchess of Claringdon, concocts a crazy scheme to allow Cass and Julian to spend some time together. She persuades Cass to pretend to be Patience Bunbury and lure Julian to the country for a house party. Lucy is sure that a few days spent in Cassandra’s company will persuade Julian that he loves her and that he will forgive their deception once he finds out that Patience is really his dear friend and correspondent, Cassandra. All seems to be working out when Julian doesn’t recognize Cassandra, who has transformed from a gawky teenager into a total bombshell in the years he’s been away. But as more and more friends and relatives are drawn into the deception, it seems inevitable that Julian will learn the truth before Cass gets up the nerve to tell him herself.
The references to Oscar Wilde’s play are more of a tribute than a straight retelling, which keeps this hilarious and lively story from becoming too predictable. Bowman is one to watch.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04208-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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