Roarke and Eve remain an appealing pair, and Eve’s flashes of vulnerability contrast nicely with her no-nonsense approach to...
Future cop Eve Dallas (Born in Death, Nov. 2006, etc.) returns to investigate the murder of a popular history teacher and deal with an unexpected threat to her marriage.
Two students discover the vomit-covered corpse of 26-year-old Craig Foster in his classroom at one of New York’s toniest private schools. He’s been done in by hot chocolate laced with ricin, a choice of poison that betrays a cold, calculating killer who intended the victim to suffer. But why? Craig was admired by students and faculty alike, madly in love with his beautiful wife and apparently free of enemies. Eve theorizes that he might have been silenced for knowing too much about the after-school shenanigans of faculty Lothario Reed Williams, who dallied with teachers and parents alike. Then Reed is drowned in the school pool, leaving several possible culprits, but still no motives or patterns that satisfy Lieutenant Dallas. When Eve’s gut leads her to the least likely of perps, she faces an uphill battle to convince her colleagues before the killer strikes again. Her cop instincts are also triggered by the arrival of Magdelana Percell, a knockout blonde from hubby Roarke’s larcenous past. Eve can tell from a split-second glance he gives “Maggie” that she once meant something to him, a discovery that prompts jealous brooding and uncharacteristic insecurity in the tough-talking heroine. Indeed, Magdelana is an unreformed con artist keen to pick up where she left off with Roarke, who can’t see at first that he’s being played. That leaves Eve to not only solve the case, but to make it home in time for a Valentine’s Day dinner to sort out differences with her soulmate.
Roarke and Eve remain an appealing pair, and Eve’s flashes of vulnerability contrast nicely with her no-nonsense approach to work. Occasionally, though, Robb’s New-York-in-2060 gimmick draws undue attention to itself.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2007
ISBN: 0-399-15401-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2006
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious...
Beautiful Italian babe with a passion for fire and doomed hunks joins the arson squad and discovers that someone has held a torch for her since she was a child.
When Reena Hale is 11 years old, she watches her family's Baltimore pizzeria go up in flames. Thanks to a local arson detective, John Minger, and the girl's keen memory, police determine that a neighborhood crook whose young son had recently attacked Reena was out for revenge, and soon cops publicly haul the dirt bag off to jail. The large and loving Hale family bands together and rebuilds; Reena grows up curious about the origins of fire. She attends college and, after her boyfriend dies in an accident, joins the police force and learns the inner workings of the fire department. Eventually, she teams with Minger to solve the city's suspicious fires. Meanwhile, over the years, a shady character has been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to violently sabotage Reena's relationships (usually with the help of explosives). Somehow Reena doesn't put together that all of her boyfriends have been in the path of catastrophic (occasionally deadly) events, so her stalker hits the phone lines to clue her in with dirty messages that become more and more intimate. When Reena launches a torrid love affair with her new neighbor, whose truck soon explodes, she begins to get it. Fearing for her family's safety, Reena reopens past cases and learns that her troubles started when she was a child. The tale builds to a breathless climax as she (literally) races to beat out the flames of one fire before determining where the next one will be set.
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious nature.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2005
ISBN: 0-399-15306-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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