Oddly wimpy and not much fun.
Mayer and the usually irresistible Crusie (Bet Me, 2004, etc.) stumble in this romantic action film of a novel about a woman trying to direct a romantic action film set near Savannah, Ga.
After the previous director succumbs to a heart attack, Lucy Armstrong agrees to direct for the shoot’s last four days the movie on which her ex-husband Conner is stunt coordinator, mainly because she wants to spend time with her sister Daisy, also working on the movie, and five-year-old niece Pepper. Lucy is worried about Daisy, who seems drugged out, and Pepper, who seems lonely (and unbearably, unbelievably precocious). Lucy learns from her assistant that an action ending has been tacked on to the romantic comedy. Although the ending, requiring dangerous stunts, makes no sense, she is pressured by the movie’s mysterious Irish backer Finnegan to finish filming. Meanwhile, Conner says he wants to get back together, but Lucy—wisely—no longer trusts him and finds herself more attracted to the leading actor’s new stunt double, a Special Forces macho warrior named J.T. Wilder. Lucy does not know that J.T. has been assigned by the CIA to track down Finnegan and the Russian mobster to whom he owes 50 million dollars’ worth of Mexican phallic sculptures. J.T. wins Pepper’s heart when he gives her a Wonder Woman Doll. It doesn’t take him much more to win over Lucy, with whom he’s soon having torrid sex. Meanwhile, scary things are happening that may or may not be accidents. Throw in a one-eyed pregnant alligator and a sniper sharing the nearby swamp and the danger quotient rises, especially when Pepper is kidnapped. Despite plenty of blood-and-guts violence, there’s not much mystery to pull the reader along.
Oddly wimpy and not much fun.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34812-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious...
Beautiful Italian babe with a passion for fire and doomed hunks joins the arson squad and discovers that someone has held a torch for her since she was a child.
When Reena Hale is 11 years old, she watches her family's Baltimore pizzeria go up in flames. Thanks to a local arson detective, John Minger, and the girl's keen memory, police determine that a neighborhood crook whose young son had recently attacked Reena was out for revenge, and soon cops publicly haul the dirt bag off to jail. The large and loving Hale family bands together and rebuilds; Reena grows up curious about the origins of fire. She attends college and, after her boyfriend dies in an accident, joins the police force and learns the inner workings of the fire department. Eventually, she teams with Minger to solve the city's suspicious fires. Meanwhile, over the years, a shady character has been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to violently sabotage Reena's relationships (usually with the help of explosives). Somehow Reena doesn't put together that all of her boyfriends have been in the path of catastrophic (occasionally deadly) events, so her stalker hits the phone lines to clue her in with dirty messages that become more and more intimate. When Reena launches a torrid love affair with her new neighbor, whose truck soon explodes, she begins to get it. Fearing for her family's safety, Reena reopens past cases and learns that her troubles started when she was a child. The tale builds to a breathless climax as she (literally) races to beat out the flames of one fire before determining where the next one will be set.
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious nature.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2005
ISBN: 0-399-15306-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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