Review by Booklist Review
Young widow Hattie Kavanaugh just lost her shirt on her last attempted renovation of a historic house in Savannah, so she's desperate enough to accept Mo Lopez's offer to star in her own show on the Home Place Television Network. Though the network lets her best friend, Cass, stay on as foreman, they bring on hotshot designer Trae Bartholomew to spice things up in the house and maybe with Hattie, too. Unfortunately, the beach house they are renovating on Tybee Island is a total disaster, and the network's time line is tighter than the budget. Then Cass finds a wallet hidden in a wall, one that belonged to their favorite English teacher, who went missing their senior year. That, plus an overzealous inspector and a mysterious dumpster fire, makes it seem like this renovation is doomed, too. Andrews' latest, after The Newcomer (2021), is a frothy combination of a hectic old-house-renovation story and a cozy mystery with a hint of romance centered around a likable heroine who has been holding too many feelings at bay. A perfect summer escape.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Andrews' perennial summer-bestseller status plus the hot home-renovation theme means lots of demand.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Andrews (The Newcomer) sparkles in this fast-paced tale of a reluctant TV star, a driven producer, and a long-dormant mystery on the Georgia coast. Widowed contractor Hattie Kavanaugh is in the middle of a plumbing disaster at the historic Savannah house she's trying to flip when Mo Lopez, who creates reality shows for an HGTV-type network, stops by to pitch a show involving her project ("You're passionate. You're smart. You've got attitude.... And it doesn't hurt that you're damned attractive. The camera is going to love you," he tells her). At first, Hattie wants nothing to do with it, but she reconsiders due to her bleak financial situation. She then purchases another fixer-upper, this one on nearby Tybee Island, and as she gets going on the demo work, with Mo and his camera crew at her side, she discovers in a wall a wallet that belonged to Lanier Ragan, her high school English teacher who went missing 17 years earlier. As she uncovers more clues about Lanier, it seems someone might be willing to kill to keep the house's secrets. The author skillfully navigates the various threads--there's sexual tension between Hattie and a slew of suitors, and a twisty third act involving Lanier's fate. Andrews's fans will eat this up. (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In Andrews's latest, widowed Hattie Kavanaugh has a chance to rescue her business by appearing in a beach-house renovation reality show called The Homewreckers, competing with a male lead who could be a new love interest--or her worst competitor ever (300,000-copy first printing). In debuter Caña's A Proposal They Can't Refuse, Kamilah Vega wants to update her family's Puerto Rican restaurant but can't get permission from her ailing octogenarian grandfather unless she marries his best friend's son, Irish American whiskey distiller Liam (75,000-copy first printing). In Colgan's Island Wedding, Flora MacKenzie is planning a sweet, small wedding on the Scottish island of Mure when she learns that rich, gorgeous Olivia is returning home to Mure for her own extravaganza wedding--planned for the same day (100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Foster's The Honeymoon Cottage, Jubil Long isn't thrilled that the little sister he's cared for since their parents' deaths wants an out-of-the-way country wedding, but then he meets wedding planner Yardley Belanger, who wishes she could have her own wedding one day (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Lauren's Something Wilder takes Lily Wilder to the Utah desert, where she uses her difficult treasure-hunting dad's old maps to conduct staged hunts and encounters the one man from the past who always saw her as the love of his life (100,00-copy first printing). A thief since childhood, when he scrambled to support a mother dying of cancer, the ever-honorable Harry Booth feels he can't follow up his feelings for Miranda Emerson--although maybe there's hope if he disentangles himself from the Nightwork he's been trapped into doing for bad-guy Carter LaPorte. This latest from Roberts has a million-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young Georgia widow flips a historic house and finds evidence of a long-missing woman while developing a growing attraction for a co-worker. Hattie Kavanaugh married her high school sweetheart and lost him to a motorcycle accident after just a few years of marriage. Almost seven years on, she's still living in her unfinished bungalow renovation near Savannah, grieving her husband, Hank, and flipping houses with his dad, Tug; her best friend, Cassidy Pelletier; and Cass' mother, Zenobia. After a disastrous flip where Hattie loses all her savings on a gorgeous--but dilapidated--157-year-old home, Hattie decides to take an offer to star in a Home Place Television Network production with Cass that will bring in a steady paycheck as she works on her next flip and tries to earn back the money she's lost. The catch--which she doesn't know but her producer, Mo Lopez, does--is that the show she signed on for has changed in concept from a straight house-flipping show to a house-flip--meets--dating-show, where the goal is for the handsome designer, Trae Bartholomew, to seduce her over the course of the series. Hattie digs deep to fund the flip, pawning her engagement ring and taking a loan from her father, a wealthy ex-felon who has served time in prison for embezzlement. Author Andrews has packed a lot into this story: Not only is there drama from the reality show and Hattie's growing attraction to a co-worker, but 17 years earlier beloved local schoolteacher Lanier Ragan went missing, and the story follows both the renovation of the long-abandoned beach home Hattie buys and the discovery of evidence in the cold case of the teacher's disappearance. A fun story with twists and turns that will appeal to romantics and cold-case fans alike. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
