A sparkling new voice in historical romance delivers a satisfying story of love on the edges of the beau monde.
A duke and an inventor fall in love for a second time, and sparks fly.
Fiona McTavish was once in love with a duke, before she knew he was a duke. But when Edward Stirling, Duke of Wildeforde, returned home to tell his mother he was prepared to marry a commoner, she subtly reminded him of his duty, nipping his announcement in the bud. Fiona was devastated when he failed to return and chose to focus her curious mind on her inventions; meanwhile, in London, Edward focused on restoring his family’s reputation. But when Fiona comes to London five years later to try to find a distributor for her latest invention and finds herself arrested during a protest against the government—while dressed as a Mr. Finley McTavish, no less—Edward is the only person she knows who can get her out of jail. Unfortunately for Fiona’s plans, the rescue involves the requirement that she live in his house for a month in the middle of the season, just as the duke is beginning his search for a suitable wife. Fiona sets up a lab and tries to find a business partner, but her frustration at being turned down repeatedly by skittish moneymen is rivaled only by her frustration at the clear chemistry she and Edward still have. As they grow closer again, Edward comes to realize he wants to marry her, regardless of any gossip or scandal, but her day in court sparks a misstep that may part them permanently. The second entry in Parish’s Rebels With a Cause series, like the first, How To Survive a Scandal (2021), is an engaging story of love in the face of class differences, with an unusually honest assessment of the barriers many couples would face in such circumstances. The complex story is enlivened by Fiona’s Scottish voice as well as by the realistic way both hero and heroine navigate difficult family relationships alongside their own second-chance romance. Despite the obstacles, of course, Fiona and Edward have their happy-ever-after, and because Fiona’s invention is the safety match, this comes with copious fire metaphors alongside the steamy intimate scenes. Parish continues to bring a refreshing point of view to the Regency subgenre, and though the book stands alone, fans will want to read both volumes in the series so far for the full story.
A sparkling new voice in historical romance delivers a satisfying story of love on the edges of the beau monde.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-0454-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
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