A romance as brash and dynamic as its setting and characters.
Lara Valley is determined to create a better life for herself, working her way through nursing school as a bartender and avoiding relationships, especially with lady killer Johnny Devlin, the tempting, sexy mechanic who’s suddenly her knight in shining armor.
Johnny enjoys his life. Working at Webster’s Garage with his best friends is satisfying, and socializing together at their favorite dive bar is the perfect way to wind down. And yeah, Lara the gorgeous bartender is a nice distraction, but Johnny is a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy, and she’s turned him down enough times to make it clear she’s not going out with him, despite the fact that their attraction is obvious to everyone. Lara is friendly but standoffish, and everyone at Ray’s bar knows she’s not interested in relationships, that she’s driven and ambitious and keeping her eyes on the prize of getting her nursing degree. But things change the night Lara gets attacked by an amorous customer who won’t take no for an answer and Johnny comes to her aid. Suddenly the thought of a real relationship seems like a good fit for them. Lara sees a deeper side to the charming lady’s man, and Johnny may have discovered a woman he’s willing to commit to. But as their relationship turns serious, the stress of Lara’s schedule and some family turmoil take their tolls, and Johnny’s fears of not being good enough for his smart, striving girlfriend threaten their ability to find balance and happiness. Harte’s take on the redeemed bad boy is fresh and sexy, though the class and self-esteem conflicts become slightly strained in the final act. Scorching sex scenes and gritty language are appropriate to the plot and characters but are further along the heat/cursing spectrum than many mainstream romances, so timorous readers should beware.
A romance as brash and dynamic as its setting and characters.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-4926-3026-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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