An entertaining yarn about time travel, infidelity, and art, executed with sure brush strokes.
In this debut novel, a modern Amsterdam man gets repeatedly thrown back in time to earlier eras in the Netherlands and to different incarnations of an enticing woman.
Robert Dekker is an Amsterdam resident living a semi-bohemian life in 2019 as a concert planner who’s often away on entertainment business, to the detriment of his dull marriage. A side enterprise that markets Chinese-made reproductions of classic paintings has run into a potentially ruinous lawsuit, and now his exciting mistress, Saskia, tells him she’s finding their relationship stale and may want to make a change. In this troubled state of mind, Robert drives on a bridge over the Brouwersgracht Canal and mysteriously finds himself cast back three crucial years in the past, to 2016. Now, Robert has a second chance to begin (or not) his relationship with Saskia more meaningfully and perhaps avoid other future pitfalls. Film fans, meanwhile, may detect similarities to such time-twisted romances as Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors, Mr. Destiny, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Twice Upon a Yesterday(though the only one referenced repeatedly in the text is Back to the Future). But Foley, a transplanted Englishman living in the Netherlands, expands the concept. With clear, businesslike prose, the author relates his unstuck-in-time hero’s slipping ever further back in Dutch history (it is telegraphed that Rembrandt will be involved), encountering different iterations of Saskia. In addition to awkward reintroductions, Robert uses his knowledge of past events to stay out of harm’s way and—if possible—extend his limited supply of insulin for the life-threatening diabetes that afflicts him. Although a few key plot threads seem to be introduced but then lead nowhere (one concerns Robert’s being able to diagnose Saskia’s impending breast cancer years in advance), the overall result is an extremely readable, intelligent, and entertaining work of paranormal fiction. The story has a built-in appeal for consumers of Diana Gabaldon’s blockbuster bodice- and kilt-ripper Outlander franchise as well as readers of time-trippy adventures who would not normally browse any novel in a bookstore’s romance section. Extra points will be awarded by aficionados of Dutch history who are interested in armchair Amsterdam travel, temporal or otherwise.
An entertaining yarn about time travel, infidelity, and art, executed with sure brush strokes.Pub Date: June 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-9-09034-589-5
Page Count: 291
Publisher: San San
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
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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