An engrossing, inspiring depiction of traumatized individuals growing amidst challenges.
Trauma survivors reunite and pursue a future in this concluding book of Van Den Hende’s contemporary romance trilogy.
In a prologue set in the New York City subway system, Roy, who has “slid too easily from military veteran to unsheltered,” is pulled back from a suicide attempt by a stranger (entrepreneur Phoenix Walker) who is then trapped on the tracks himself. Nine months later, Chinese American marketer Orchid Paige, who is about to leave for a job in China, is asked by Phoenix (now with a prosthetic arm and prosthetic leg due to the subway incident) if they can “try again.” Orchid was traumatized by the death of her parents in a car accident when she was 12—Phoenix connected with her following his deceased jurist father’s directive to “bestow a good deed on one of my long-ago cases.” The couple developed a budding if skittish romance as they worked together on an ad campaign about veterans suffering from PTSD. After his accident, Phoenix “abandoned” Orchid to deal with his trauma and protect her from being triggered anew about her own. Now reunited, the couple advances toward a committed relationship as Phoenix goes with Orchid to China, where she creates visionary new products and a marketing campaign featuring the disabled. Concurrently, Roy emerges from his despair to cultivate new skills to help him locate the stranger who saved him. The author adeptly alternates between chapters focused on the points of view of Roy, Orchid, and Phoenix to convey three compelling journeys of post-traumatic recovery. The Orchid/Phoenix romance, featured in the previous two books of this trilogy, is the appealing main attraction. Van Den Hende beautifully dramatizes how this couple attains maturity in managing the new circumstances of their relationship by embracing positivity, resilience, and humor. She also weaves in various suspenseful subplots, perhaps setting the stage for a new series.
An engrossing, inspiring depiction of traumatized individuals growing amidst challenges.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781958223000
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Azine Press
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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