A silly, enjoyable romance involving entrapment, shopping sprees, crevasses, and ugly hiking boots.
In Chisholm and Kim’s (K-Town Confidential, 2017) romance, a high-powered lawyer puts a plan into motion to test his wife’s fidelity.
When Mark Bell discovers an old trove of nude photographs and sex tapes featuring his wife of 10 years, Kat Connor, with various men, he becomes obsessed with testing her loyalty to him. Soon afterward, Finn Maus, a handsome German mountain infantryman with eyes the “color of the Adriatic,” shows up in Mark’s law office. His best friend, Gunnar Becker, has been accused of sexual assault by Lina Valentina, “Disney’s sweetheart of the moment” whose partying during her free time has become “a problem” for Disney. Mark agrees to do the case pro bono—if Finn will fly to a picturesque Canadian ski resort and attempt to seduce Kat. But what Mark doesn’t know is that Kat secretly finds him annoying, particularly when it comes to sex. Sending a young, handsome seducer might not turn out the way he envisions—particularly when Finn has been outfitted in the finest clothing, such as a “Loro Piana cashmere sports jacket in a very restrained plaid,” handpicked by Mark during a Neiman Marcus shopping spree. The third-person narrative flits between different characters’ perspectives, giving readers insights that other characters don’t have, which ruins some surprises. However, with minor characters named Sesami Lee and Veronica Vamp, this romance sometimes veers into the ludicrous—and it’s all the better for it. Although the plotline is mostly predictable, some lines are ridiculous enough to make it fun: “I’m kind of like jazz,” says Finn. “I flow like the river and respond, she curves like the river, this way and that way.” At one point on his seduction trip, Finn lures Kat away from a crowd, only to fall into a hole in the ice himself, which seems wonderfully tragicomic.
A silly, enjoyable romance involving entrapment, shopping sprees, crevasses, and ugly hiking boots.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-012-6
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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