A moderately juicy romance with winks to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
A young woman, haunted by her past, finds hope in the Maine woods.
When Nora Dash’s father dies, he leaves two bombshells for her and her sister, Yanne. First, he had a whole second family—actually his first, comprising a wife of 35 years and her daughter from an earlier marriage. Second, Nora and Yanne have inherited a dilapidated house on an island in Maine, and if they don’t fix it up by Labor Day and pay off the mortgage, which is in arrears, the property will default to Felicia, their evil quasi-stepsister. Nora and Yanne decide to turn the property into an inn. After heading from Maryland to Maine, they find themselves the only Black women for 100 miles. But Barton Cove is not empty when they arrive. In fact, they are greeted by a mostly naked man warming himself by the fire. Although at first they think they’ve stumbled across a sex cult, what they’ve actually found is a tour group—including said naked man, who’d previously fallen in a stream and is now drying off. The group is led by Ennis “Bear” Freeman, an Abenaki man with dreams of becoming a college track coach. The chemistry between Nora and Bear is immediately palpable. After their awkward first meeting, they quickly decide to become partners: Bear will help Nora fix up the inn, and Nora will let Bear use the property to host his tours. But Nora and Bear both carry significant baggage: Bear is embroiled in a complicated relationship with his sort-of-ex-girlfriend and has a mountain of debt, and Nora is tormented by a sex tape that she and her boyfriend released in college. Much of the novel feels confused, with too much manufactured drama and an overabundance of plot points that at times takes away from the charming love story at its center. Despite these flaws, Payne’s voice is fun and sexy, and Nora’s thoughts in particular are a joy to read.
A moderately juicy romance with winks to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593440964
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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