A slow-burn romantic suspense story eventually finds its footing.
Two spies are forced to work together despite their mutual mistrust in the latest pseudonymous novel from Stacey Abrams.
Dr. Raleigh Foster is a brilliant chemist who was recruited to work as an operative for the International Security Agency when she was only 20. The mysterious agency is a joint effort of more than 75 countries, undertaking top-secret missions to ensure peace and security around the globe. Adam Grayson and his best friend, Phillip Turman, were recruited to work for the ISA after graduating from Harvard Law School. The three worked together on a mission that went disastrously wrong three years earlier. Phillip died in action, and Adam blamed Raleigh for his death. Adam quit working with the ISA and returned to running his wealthy family's network of companies, while Raleigh continued to work as a highly decorated agent. Now, Raleigh is given the job of recruiting Adam to go undercover and stop a terrorist organization from converting one of his company's inventions into a chemical weapon. On the mission, Adam and Raleigh must pose as lovers, which makes it hard for them to ignore the sizzling attraction between them. As they spend more time undercover, they find a series of puzzling clues indicating that there's a mole inside the ISA. Adam is convinced that Raleigh’s friend and mentor is the mole, while she suspects that Phillip might have faked his own death. The beginning of the novel is overburdened with exposition, but once Raleigh and Adam go undercover on the fictional Mediterranean island of Jafir, the plot picks up speed. The novel deftly explores loyalty and the perils of trusting in “the rules of engagement” in a world of intrigue and secrets.
A slow-burn romantic suspense story eventually finds its footing.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43939-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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