A charming romance that’s as warm and cozy as hot chocolate on a winter’s day.
The search for a painting’s provenance leads an artist to a seaside New England town and a tantalizing mystery in this debut contemporary romance.
Boston artist Charlotte Moore is worried her first assignment as lead buyer for Troy Wallace’s gallery may be her last. Every Christmas the art gallery purchases a work to sell at its holiday gala, and Charlotte impulsively buys the final painting in an auction: a landscape of a beach at sunset with a lighthouse and a beautiful ruby ring in the foreground. Unfortunately, Troy does not like sunsets. But to her surprise, he loves the work: “The balance of the tone with the ring is exquisite and the brush strokes are incredible—I’ve never seen anything like it.” He wants Charlotte to find out the name of the artist and the story behind the painting. The only clues are a date, Dec. 24, 1919, and the location of the lighthouse, Seabreeze, New Hampshire. With 12 days to go before the gala, Charlotte travels to Seabreeze, where she quickly befriends the local residents, including Nancy and Richard Bennett and their son, Aidan. Charlotte immerses herself in the history of Seabreeze and soon discovers the Bennett family may be connected to the priceless ring depicted in the painting. As her inquiry progresses, an attraction develops between Charlotte and Aidan, and she wonders if the search for the work’s origins could also lead to the love of a lifetime. Gibson’s romance is as bright and sparkling as the ruby ring at the center of the painting. Charlotte is a strong and amiable protagonist. A talented artist recovering from a devastating breakup, she finds that her passion for painting is reignited by her trip to Seabreeze and her hunt for answers. The author deftly weaves together two central narratives—Charlotte’s present-day investigation involving the striking painting and flashbacks to 1919 and the poignant tale of Oliver Bennett and Alice Baker, childhood sweethearts torn apart by a misunderstanding. Each story could stand on its own, but together the two threads form a rich tapestry connecting the history of a town and its citizens to a remarkable piece of art.
A charming romance that’s as warm and cozy as hot chocolate on a winter’s day.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9798987711552
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harpeth Road Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.
A TV producer and a detective try to stop a strange pattern of young women disappearing.
In “Auclair, Loooziana,” disillusioned detective John Bowie reluctantly meets in a bar with Beth Collins, producer for the true crime show Crisis Point. She needs to interview him about the disastrous case of the missing Crissy Mellin, but he refuses. The teenager disappeared three years ago on the night of a blood moon and hasn’t been found, but a suspect hanged himself in jail after signing a confession. Case closed, says John’s boss. But John is convinced that their prisoner could not have been guilty, and he’s deeply upset at his failure. “The Mellin case messed up your life,” Beth tells him. She persuades John that Crissy’s disappearance is the latest of a series that happen on the night of a blood moon, the colloquial term for a total lunar eclipse. “It’s going to happen again,” she predicts. And wouldn’t you know, another blood moon is coming in four days. Tick, tick, tick. Beth’s boss at Crisis Point insists on airing an update on the case, but Beth knows the show is going to get it wrong, and its reputation will be ruined. Meanwhile, there’s an electric sexual tension between Beth and John that the author toys with nicely—do they, or don’t they? The answer plays out in detail more than once. The characters are fun if easy to pigeonhole: the detective angry at his failure, the honest (and beautiful) outsider eager to do her job but susceptible to love, the hero’s corrupt (to say the least) boss, and the ogre who carries out said boss’s dirtiest deeds. Even John’s dog, Mutt, plays a small but vital role. When John found him, he’d been “a flea-bitten hide wrapped around a skeleton that whimpered.” Little plot devices are easy to spot, like the phone that rings at a crucial moment, or the handgun that John places in Beth’s hand for her protection. Does Chekhov’s guideline apply here? The romantic angle leavens the dark theme, and readers will have plenty of incentives to turn the pages.
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781538742983
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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