A wacky yet touching tale about love, truth, and acceptance.
A down-and-out writer lands a gig ghostwriting a celebrity’s memoir—only to discover he’s writing for an actual ghost.
Adam Gallagher’s career is, for lack of a better word, dying. A decade after publishing Salt Lake City Sodomite, the bestselling recount of his Mormon upbringing and public excommunication, Adam hasn’t written anything nearly as successful. Paul, his agent, has barely spoken to him in ages when he invites him out to a swanky steak dinner to tell him that Roland Rogers has personally requested him to write his coming-out story. Roland is a household name, a modern-day Cary Grant who stars as Crag Dynamite in a popular action movie franchise. After decades in the limelight as a charming bachelor, Roland is ready to speak his truth: He’s gay. Who better to write his story than his favorite author, who publicly came out all those years ago? After getting all the details from Paul, Adam sets out to spend a month at Roland’s Malibu mansion and transcribe the superstar’s story, as requested, by hand. But when Adam arrives at the celebrity’s doorstep, there’s just one tiny little hiccup: Roland is dead. After having suffered an accident on a solo backcountry skiing trip, Roland’s body remains buried under mountains of snow, but his spirit haunts his California mansion through various electrical appliances. With Adam’s help, he plans to use his book to come out before news spreads of his death. After the initial shock of meeting a ghost, Adam is prepared to fulfill Roland’s dying wish—his own career depends on it. As weeks pass, Adam and Roland develop a connection neither has felt, alive or dead, but Adam can’t help but wonder…Why now? Allen’s supernatural tale is eccentric, funny, and pleasantly peculiar. Adam and Roland are unconventional protagonists: two middle-aged men, one wildly famous and the other comically downtrodden, both searching for a sense of self. Allen offers readers an unlikely romance, sprinkled with lust, regret, humor, and even paranormal activity, and somehow it absolutely works.
A wacky yet touching tale about love, truth, and acceptance.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781638931539
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Zando
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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