Just in time for a beach read—or a guilty pleasure in a deserted boardroom.
Friendship steadies four powerful women, all seeking to support each other through personal and professional trials.
Television personality and advice columnist Rita’s debut novel reads a bit like a multicultural edition of Sex and the City. The four friends, all gorgeous, sassy, and independent, anchor Latina culture in multiple ethnicities: Mexican-American, Venezuelan-American, Puerto Rican, and Dominican–African-American. Each chapter is chock full of enough twists to be an episode, but so much activity leads to a fair amount of burdensome exposition and some awkwardly integrated (“It was six years earlier…”) back stories. One of the few Latinas to grace the small screen, Cat has just been released from her contract, a casualty, in part, of network executives thinking Hispanic equals bilingual. But instead of feeling devastated, Cat has a strange joy bubbling up through her body. Losing her job may be the best thing that’s ever happened to her. The head of her own culturally diverse venture capital company, Magda suffers no fools in her ambitious, aggressive life. Yet when she came out as lesbian years ago, it created fissures in her family that may now be breaking into pieces. Luz, an advertising executive married to a perfect, supportive Chinese-American husband, balances her career and life with her adorable twin girls and toddler son. A surprise from her parents’ past, however, may upset not only her stable family life, but also her own sense of identity. Luckily, the fourth girlfriend, Gabi, is a therapist who helps shift each woman’s perspective from seeing a crisis to seeing an opportunity, no matter the curveball. She may, of course, be missing a few clues in her own life that point toward marital disaster. Brimming with smart dialogue and ricocheting plot twists, Rita’s potentially clichéd tale is actually ripe for a screenplay.
Just in time for a beach read—or a guilty pleasure in a deserted boardroom.Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0130-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
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