An often frothy romance that manages to expertly combine emotional heft with pure escapism.
In Ready’s novel, a young woman receives a magical watch and then, after she falls in love, fights to make her dream life a reality.
The third book in Ready’s Ghosted series introduces Moonbeam Clover Fiona Abry (who’s insisted on going by “Fiona” ever since she was 8 years old). After inheriting her family’s Swiss watch business in Geneva following her father’s death, she and her brother, Daniel, have managed to pull the business out of near-bankruptcy. Fiona, a single mother, decided long ago to never open herself up to love, mainly because her own flighty mother intermittently abandoned her as a child. Her best friend, Max,still tries his hardest to woo her nevertheless. Fiona’s mother gives her a long-lost family heirloom—a watch from her heretofore unknown Uncle Leopold. When Fiona wears it, the watch gives Fiona dreams of her greatest desire. Fiona finds herself on a tropical island where everyone calls her “Becca”; she’s married to a handsome man named McCormick and has two delightful young children. Fiona decides to settle back and enjoy her recurrent dreams, since she feels her heart is protected from truly caring about this “fantasy”; then she unexpectedly begins to fall hopelessly in love with her sensitive, thoughtful dream husband. Although Fiona attempts to try her hand at romance with Max in reality, she can’t stop thinking about McCormick. A series of shocking twists make Fiona question everything she thought she knew—including herself.
Readers of conventional romances come to expect certain genre elements, and Ready does indeed deliver them over the course of this novel, but her real talent comes in subverting such familiar beats just enough so that readers begin to question how (or even if) certain events will come to pass. Although the book has plenty of swoonworthy romance—McCormick is basically a beach god—the author also hits on heavier themes that are less common in the genre, including abandonment, infidelity, motherhood, and duty. Ready has a lot to say about each, and she does so with wit and empathy. At one point, for example, when Fiona explainshow she fell in love with McCormick in her dreams, she describes it as “a gradual thing, like the flow of the gentle tide washing over a softly sanded golden beach. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m lying….Well, we don’t lie in dreams, do we? Everyone knows that dreams are where we tell ourselves the truth.” The dialogue feels pleasantly natural throughout, and almost all the characters are well developed. That said, a few people, such as McCormick’s supposed best friend, Robert, veer into caricature. Fiona’s and Max’s attempts at moving their nine-year friendship into romantic territory is particularly earnest and realistic—so much so that readers might even have trouble deciding whether the very real Max or the very dreamy McCormick is the best match for Fiona.
An often frothy romance that manages to expertly combine emotional heft with pure escapism.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781954007772
Page Count: 492
Publisher: W.W. Crown
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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