A warm, winning debut with intelligence and storytelling panache to spare.
A successful Atlanta-based matchmaking entrepreneur suddenly finds herself the target of increasingly bizarre and terrifying events that threaten first her business and then her life.
A third-generation matchmaker, Nura Khan considers it the work she “was put on this earth to do” and has an enviable record of success pairing off the well-to-do men and women who are part of her client pool. Well-educated, worldly, and hard-working, 31-year-old Nura seems to have the best of everything—except a match for herself. Still, she manages to keep up socially necessary appearances with a fake fiancé named Azar, a childhood friend with whom she (quite disastrously) fell in love with as a college student, but who is more than willing to accompany her to clients’ weddings. Then her glittering world begins to crumble when a member of her staff comes across a podcast from an unknown man who slanders Nura’s work and a rejected client threatens to destroy her reputation with bogus claims of misconduct. Saeed’s deft handling of the escalating tensions that follow—the kidnapping of a bride and groom; Nura’s deepening quandary about Azar, the best friend she cannot admit is the love of her life; and the devastating betrayal that changes everything—creates a narrative that will captivate readers from the first page. This hybrid romance/mystery takes the South Asian tradition of arranged marriage and works it into a story that delights with its shimmering fluidity, memorable characters, heart-stopping twists, and a happily-ever-after that warms the heart while bringing the narrative to a delectably satisfying close.
A warm, winning debut with intelligence and storytelling panache to spare.Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593871157
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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