In Gilded Age New York, a young heiress falls in love with the city’s most notorious kingpin.
Justine Greene is the youngest of three sisters born into the highest echelon of society. Her family thinks she's shy, retiring, and committed to charity, but she hides the full extent of her work with impoverished women downtown. Justine refuses to let anyone make decisions for her and decides to help other women seize control of their lives. Where she used to serve meals or deliver blankets, now Justine is actively investigating and searching for deadbeat husbands who have abandoned their wives and children. One investigation brings her into the orbit of Jack Mulligan, the leader of New York’s largest criminal empire. When Jack offers to assist her in exchange for a future favor, Justine has no choice but to agree, and they are inexplicably drawn to each other. Justine is the only person who refuses to bend to Jack’s will, and she appreciates the generous, charming man who treats her like an adult instead of a child. In this final book of the Uptown Girls trilogy, Shupe (The Prince of Broadway, 2019, etc.) explores the porous boundary between what is legal versus what is ethical. Although Jack is a criminal, he does more to help people in the neighborhood than Tammany Hall politicians or the local police. Justine falls in love with Jack but fears she will compromise her principles by staying with a man who believes only in power; meanwhile, Jack doesn’t understand her naïve inability to see how the world really works. This dilemma is a richly layered, nuanced exploration of how lovers compromise on seemingly insurmountable differences.
A strong finish to an excellent series about strong-willed women determined to live life on their own terms.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-290685-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | HISTORICAL ROMANCE
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PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
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An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE
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