Keep your friends close and these four aunties closer.
Another wild wedding day befalls the Chan family in Sutanto’s wacky sequel to Dial A for Aunties (2021).
Almost a year after Meddy Chan and her four aunties covered up an accidental murder, Meddy can’t wait to have a fresh start by marrying her dream guy, Nathan, at Oxford's Christ Church College. He’s the “perfect specimen of a man” according to her Ma, yet even with their wedding day rapidly approaching, Meddy can’t help but feel like their union is too good to be true. To make matters worse, her “batty” aunties have yet to meet Nathan’s prim-and-proper English parents, and they’ve started using British slang like “dog’s bollocks” in hopes of impressing Chris and Annie. To further appease Meddy’s wedding jitters, her aunties hire the Tanuwijayas, an Indonesian family of wedding vendors who handle flowers, hair, makeup, and photography—score! Meddy finds a kindred spirit in photographer Staphanie, and they become fast friends after bonding over misspelled names and pepper spray. Their friendship proves to be short-lived, however, when Meddy overhears a phone conversation in which Staphanie agrees to take someone out…and not as a plus one. It turns out Staph and her family are in the organized crime business, and their next target happens to be a guest at the Chan wedding. When Staphanie threatens to expose last year’s accident to the police, Meddy and her aunties embark on a madcap, Sopranos-style series of hijinks in order to stop the Tanuwijayas’ plan in its tracks. With plenty of weed-spiked champagne and gags made of pantyhose, these four aunties make it known: Don’t mess with the Chan family. Sutanto’s sequel doubles the trouble for Meddy and Co., but it is not without some frustrating moments (Meddy is basically MIA for her entire wedding). Despite the continual shenanigans, you can't help but get a kick out of the aunties' outrageous stunts and their even bigger hearts.
Keep your friends close and these four aunties closer.Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-44076-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget the tangled backstory, focus on the game of cat and mouse, and enjoy.
Lt. Eve Dallas and her colleagues in the New York Police and Security Department step outside their comfort zone into counterterrorism.
Back in 2024, during the stressful time of the Urban Wars, a courageous band calling themselves The Twelve fought Dominion and other violent fringe groups that sought to end civilization as we know it, despite the presence of a traitor in their own midst. Now, 37 years later, someone’s killed Giovanni Rossi, a retired cybersecurity expert who was one of The Twelve, an hour or so after a summons—ostensibly from another veteran of the group—brought him from Rome to New York. On the body, officers called to the scene find a copy of Dallas’ business card that’s been embellished with a flamboyant threat to annihilate the seven surviving members of The Twelve. Obligingly inviting all seven to New York—a move you’d think would make it a lot easier for their nemesis to wipe them all out at once—Dallas soon forms a theory about the killer’s identity and sets a trap to draw him out. But her plan turns into a narrow miss, upping the stakes on both sides, for now the killer knows Dallas is on to him. It’s in the nature of the case that there’s less mystery and detection than usual in this long-running franchise—the biggest surprise turns out to be the connection between Dallas and her quarry—but the thrills keep on coming, and the final interrogation, though highly predictable in its broad outlines, is as satisfying as ever.
Forget the tangled backstory, focus on the game of cat and mouse, and enjoy.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370792
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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