Standard, appealing fare from Steel.
Steel's (Winners, 2013, etc.) latest contemporary romance targets the integrity of corporate executives.
Connecting two powerful CEOs through their children’s romantic involvement, the author uses her signature low-key, easy-to-read style to examine personal and professional morality. Fiona Carson and Marshall Weston have made it to the tops of their games with a lot of sweat equity, and both are respected leaders, but that’s where the similarities end. Fiona is an accomplished divorcée and the mother of two well-balanced college students. She makes accessibility to her son and daughter a priority and rationalizes that she doesn’t have room in her life for a man since her work and her children keep her busy and happy. When Pulitzer Prize winner Logan Smith, an investigative reporter, contacts Fiona for a story he’s working on, she sees him as a good match for her older sister, Jillian. After all, Jillian’s a psychiatrist who’s working on a book about women in power, and both Jillian and Logan believe successful women in the business world conduct themselves very differently from their male counterparts. Marshall seems to exemplify that difference. While Fiona’s a concerned parent and a by-the-book executive who would never compromise her principles, Marshall’s actions reflect his questionable ethics. Married for 27 years to the same woman, he’s been a decent provider to his wife and three children, and on the surface, he appears to achieve a perfect balance between family life and corporate duties. But looks can be deceiving. His eldest son despises him; his daughter’s on a dubious path; and Marshall’s hiding a secret life that threatens to harm the reputation of his company, destroy his marriage and damage others who depend on him. When he’s forced to make an important decision, Marshall’s loyalty to his company and loved ones is tested.
Standard, appealing fare from Steel.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53091-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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
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
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