A deft mixture of romance and humor in a story featuring a likable protagonist and cute critters: It’s a date Andrews fans...
Andrews (Christmas Bliss, 2013, etc.) produces another happily-ever-after with the usual complications; her heroine this time is a Savannah florist trying to gain a foothold in the bridal industry.
Bloom owner Cara Kryzik is barely keeping her business afloat creating innovative flower arrangements for weddings, and the last distraction she anticipates is historic-building restorer Jack Finnerty. The two met when Cara accused him of stealing her runaway goldendoodle puppy, and now Jack seems to show up at every wedding she designs. Cara isn't immune to Jack’s charms, but she initially attempts to ignore their developing attraction. Her experience growing up with an emotionally distant and sometimes physically absent military father and her recent divorce from a philandering husband have left her feeling jaded when it comes to love. But Jack’s sincerity and persistence win her over, and soon they’re sharing a bed. Cara’s career also is looking up. She wins a lucrative contract to design and direct a society wedding, and the money she’s slated to receive upon completion will enable her to pay off a loan, solidify her reputation as a floral designer and plan some much-needed improvements for her business. However, troubles multiply, and it’s not long before Cara is juggling her time between the unhappy bride and the bride's micromanaging stepmother. In addition, Bert, her assistant and friend, becomes increasingly distant and unreliable; a competitor tries to undermine her business; and a client’s family heirloom goes missing. As Cara tries to sort out problems and repair damage, she’s ultimately forced to face her own beliefs and make some tough decisions. But, in trademark Andrews style, things end on a high note in another light, predictable and pleasant diversion.
A deft mixture of romance and humor in a story featuring a likable protagonist and cute critters: It’s a date Andrews fans won’t want to miss.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01969-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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