Romance winner from veteran Garwood (Prince Charming, 1994, etc.) with another entry in her string of Montana historicals. Back east in the New York City of 1860, four homeless boysAdam, Douglas, Travis, and Colefind baby Mary Rose abandoned in an alley's trash and form a family to protect her. Wise and noble Adamthe oldest at almost 14, a runaway slave who killed his drunken, wife-beating owneris elected head of the gang as the four decide to take themselves and their charge to Montana, where folks don't ask a lot of questions. The Lord is good to the little brood. They build a simple but lovely two-story house, designed by brother Cole, the gun-totin' hothead with the heart of gold; they start a livestock business (Douglas is a whiz with animals); they teach themselves French, learning a new word each day; and they study the religions of the world. Adam also teaches little Mary Rose to play the piano, and the whole crew does well enough to send her to boarding school in St. Louis. There, she's spotted by an acquaintance of one Lord Elliott, whose daughter was kidnapped 19 years earlier in New York City. And so handsome Scottish lawyer Harrison MacDonald, Earl of Stanford, comes to Blue Belle, Montana, to see whether the outspoken but good-hearted Mary Rose is really long-lost Lady Victoria. He stays to fall in love with her and the whole Montana Territory, as well as to defend Adam against murder charges, then to bring his new wife back to England to meet her dad. The Victorian lifestyle proves too much for Mary Rose's free Western spirit, however, and she returns to her brothers, with Harrison sailing right behind.... Sugary page-turner filled with lots of family values and some fairly explicit sex between married lovers. The heroine is always protected by big, paternal fellas—and the reader is never out of Garwood's skillful comfort zone. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-87097-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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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