A masterful, original take on a beloved fairy tale is sure to please romance readers.
A gender-swapped “Cinderella” about an heiress and a custodian in 1832 London.
After her father’s untimely death, Isabella Lira must marry to secure her family’s business and standing. Her father sat on the London Commission of Delegates, an organization that works with the Crown for the safety and security of the entire Jewish community in England, while also co-owning a business with the powerful Berab brothers. The three brothers each offer to marry her, hoping to secure total control of the shared business. Isabella wants to preserve her own influence in the company, so she hatches a plan to find another suitor—one outside the sphere of the Berab family. She's going to throw three festivals in three weeks, between the holidays of Passover and Lag b’Omer, and she enlists the help of Aaron Ellenberg, an unlikely ally. Aaron exists in a strange liminal space in the community: He’s a kindhearted and gentle man who has never successfully found a job or home of his own. The community supports him by providing work as a custodian in the synagogue. He has become expert at observing everyone and everything while remaining invisible in the background. Isabella asks him to spy on prospective suitors at her parties to help her find one who won't try to control her—a man with a secret that Isabella could hold over him. In return, she offers Aaron 200 pounds, enough money for him to have a home and family, which had always seemed like an impossible dream. Isabella and Aaron should have nothing in common, but while working together they learn to respect and love each other despite their differences in status and the many obstacles in their way. It’s an engaging and sexy romance, almost old-school in its complexity, complete with genuine conflict, delicious tension, and dense, meaty subplots.
A masterful, original take on a beloved fairy tale is sure to please romance readers.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781538722541
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
An uneven but charming Highlands romance.
A Scottish laird and an English lady defy convention together.
Up in the Highlands, lairds do as they please, and for the brawny Caelan MacCrae, Laird of CaerLaven, that means fishing naked in the loch, even in chilly April weather. Widowed two years ago and uninterested in the finer things, he’s happiest when he can catch his own trout, cook it over a fire, and then be left alone in his rapidly crumbling estate. And mostly, no one bothers him—until the Honorable Miss Clara Vetry arrives during a bout of unclothed fishing. Though she claims to be Mrs. Potts, a woman ordered from London to be his housekeeper, she’s actually a bookish noblewoman in her fourth season, fleeing London in disrepute after striking the Prince Regent in response to his groping her bosom. Banished by her mother, she jumps at the chance to start a new life, and even though everyone she meets can tell she’s not actually a housekeeper, she settles in and starts setting Castle CaerLaven to rights. Despite himself, Caelan is immediately attracted to Clara’s raucous hair and straightforward nature, and is intrigued to hear that all she wants in life is a “castle filled with books”; he has one to offer, and before long, he does. Clara is taken by Caelan’s tree-trunk thighs and kind nature. But even after they kiss and start falling for each other, Clara feels certain he won’t ever love her as he did his first wife and Caelan isn’t sure how many times he can keep proposing to Clara and being rejected. James has long been one of the masters of zany, witty Regencies, and for much of the story she’s in top form. The second novel in her Accidental Brides series starts strong, with a setting that fans of Scottish romances will fall for almost as quickly as Caelan falls for Clara. Unfortunately, the momentum gets bogged down due to a misunderstanding that lingers far longer than it should, leading to a conclusion that leaves several plot points dangling. However, the strong character development and very spicy intimate scenes more than make up for the story’s weaknesses, and James’ many fans will be happy to add this laird to their shelves.
An uneven but charming Highlands romance.Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780063347465
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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