Although Kowalski (The Innocence Device, 2014, etc.) drives this brief tale toward an inevitable conclusion, it’s still an...
A professional poker player gets a surprising legacy from her only friend.
Kat Thomas learned to play poker from an expert: her own father. Although he carefully instructed her on how to read other people, how to bluff, how and when to go all in, and how to win, he lost almost everything of value in his life except for Kat. Since his death, the rule she’s embraced most completely is to play with her head and not her heart. The news of her friend Josie's death throws Kat off her game. Josie’s last wish was for her 10-year-old son, David, to stay with Kat for a month until his father could finish up some business abroad and collect him. Kat is stunned at the prospect of being even a temporary guardian. She knows nothing about children and has less feeling for them, and she’s trying to qualify for a big poker tournament in Vegas with a $1 million prize. As for David, who’s still in shock over losing the only parent he knows, he’s no happier with the arrangement than she is. But it doesn’t take long for the two to crack each other’s defenses. And when David’s father shows up early to collect him, Kat realizes that she may have been playing by the wrong rules all her life.
Although Kowalski (The Innocence Device, 2014, etc.) drives this brief tale toward an inevitable conclusion, it’s still an agreeable journey with a smart, sassy heroine who’s not nearly as tough as she likes to think she is.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1049-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Raven Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A heartwarming portrait of a broken heart finding a little healing magic.
After acing a job interview and accepting a marriage proposal, Dannie Kohan has had the perfect day. That is, until she awakens to find herself five years in the future with a completely different man.
Just one hour in that alternate reality shakes Dannie to her core. After all, highly ambitious Dannie and her boyfriend, David, have plotted out their lives in minute detail, and the sexy man in her dream—was it a dream?—is most certainly not in the script. Serle (The Dinner List, 2018) deftly spins these magical threads into Dannie’s perfectly structured life, leaving not only Dannie, but also the reader wondering whether Dannie time traveled or hallucinated. Her best friend, Bella, would delight in the story given that she thinks Dannie is much too straight-laced, and some spicy dreaming might push Dannie to find someone more passionate than David. Unfortunately, glamorous Bella is in Europe with her latest lover. Ever pragmatic, Dannie consults her therapist, who almost concurs that it was likely a dream, and throws herself into her work. Pleased to have landed the job at a prestigious law firm, Dannie easily loses her worries in litigation. Soon four and a half years have passed with no wedding date set, and Bella is back in the U.S. with a new man in her life. A man who turns out to be literally the man of Dannie’s dream. The sheer fact of Aaron Gregory’s existence forces Dannie to reevaluate her trust in the laws of physics as well as her decision to marry David, a decision that seems less believable with each passing day. And as the architecture of Dannie’s overplanned life disintegrates, Serle twists and twines the remnants of her dream into a surprising future.
A heartwarming portrait of a broken heart finding a little healing magic.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3744-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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