An absorbing tale of friendship that’s endearing as often as it’s unabashedly riotous.
The lives of the owner of a house-painting business and a teen runaway intersect in Barrett’s comic novel.
Waking up next to a dead woman would unsettle most people. But 31-year-old Sammy Davis Junior (Junior is his surname) is more worried about making it to Saturday brunch. His apparent apathy regarding the late bedmate—his regular hookup for the past month—makes South Tampa Det. O’Hare suspicious. Elsewhere, Penny Sullivan, torn up by guilt over her big sister, Catelyn’s death, has run away from home to evade boarding school. The 15-year-old travels under her sister’s name and feigns the background of a Canadian backpacker. Looking for a place to squat, Penny enters the orbit of a house-painting crew, a business Sammy and his two friends have run since high school. As she joins them on a multiday gig at the same location where she’s secretly bunking, Penny unexpectedly bonds with the older men. They play silly games, like dreaming up the most offbeat haiku, and execute well-planned pranks on local businesses. Penny and Sammy are more alike than either of them realizes; they both have father issues—Penny is certain her father doesn’t care about her, and Sammy resists taking over the multinational family business, despite his father’s wishes. The two must come to terms with their personal relationships as well as their more practical circumstances, as people are searching for Penny, and Sammy, even with his father’s “expensive lawyers,” is still tied to someone’s death.
Barrett’s story definitely has its share of morbid humor—despite the body in his bed, Sammy is blasé during the detective’s interview: “I think we’re all pretty shaken up by this whole scene,” he says. “So, I can go now?” Lowbrow jokes also pop up on occasion, including a particularly gross scene involving beer that no one should drink. The characters practically burst with personality, especially Penny, Sammy, and Sammy’s co-owners, Mealy and Beer. Penny, who’s lost both her mom and sister, has no friends, and these men offer the camaraderie that she needs. Most of their pranks, even when they cause a ruckus at a deli or a fast-food restaurant, are genuinely funny and not malicious. As much of the bonding between Penny and the crew occurs while they’re painting a house, dialogue-laden scenes are abundant. These are moments for characters to pass the time with games and trading off quips, but the author doesn’t neglect to develop the story as well, as Penny seems to gain a fondness for Mealy, who shows her kindness from the very beginning. All of that dialogue, presented in brief chapters alternating between narrators Penny and Sammy, stokes the brisk narrative pace. The final act effectively wraps up the protagonists’ individual stories, though Penny’s is the more convincing and rewarding of the two. The denouement is a bit of a swerve but unquestionably memorable.
An absorbing tale of friendship that’s endearing as often as it’s unabashedly riotous.Pub Date: April 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781685131821
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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