Briefly checked out the avon board and had to post this immediately. A reader posted the following reviews of Lisa Kleypas's first contemporary, SUGAR DADDY, being released March 2007 (can't wait that long...argh!)...read up:
Review #1 - Publishers Weekly
Mass market bestseller Kleypas makes her hardcover debut with this entertaining chronicle of Liberty Jones's rise from the trailer park to life in a Texas mansion. The daughter of a Hispanic father (who dies during Liberty's childhood) and a white mother, Liberty pines for the hunky bad boy Hardy Cates while mom Diana has another daughter, Carrington, and scores the occasional windfall to keep the family afloat. After Diana is killed in a traffic accident, Liberty raises Carrington, gets a beauty school scholarship and lands a gig at an exclusive Houston salon. There she meets investment mogul Churchill Travis, who takes a paternal shine to her. A horse-riding accident puts Churchill in a wheelchair, and he hires Liberty to be his personal assistant, with the catch that both sisters have to live with him. Churchill's oldest son, Gage, immediately distrusts Liberty, and their vicious bickering, as romance readers know, can lead to only one thing. Things get messy once Hardy, now rich, reappears and a Travis family secret is revealed. Though Liberty's plight and redemption are straight out of the soaps and the prose has its trite moments, Kleypas's many readers will root for Liberty, a fiery and likable underdog. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Review #2 - Kirkus Reviews
Growing up as an outsider in Welcome, Texas, Liberty Jones struggles to find love and acceptance. Bookish, shy and mindful of her mixed heritage (a Mexican father and a blonde, blue-eyed mother), Liberty is a social pariah. Though she's a beauty, her trailer-park home and low socioeconomic standing do nothing to further her stock among the other kids in town. She falls hard for trailer-park hottie Hardy Cates, a tough cowboy with rugged good looks and a wild streak. He sticks around long enough to steal the teenaged Liberty's heart before leaving Welcome to pursue his fortune. Loss becomes a constant in her life; tragic accidents claim both of her parents before she's 18. Forced to abandon her dreams of college, she learns a trade to support herself and her five-year-old sister, Carrington. With a beautician's certificate in hand, Liberty heads to Houston, where she lands an apprenticeship at a swank salon and vows to work her way into the middle class, one highlight appointment at a time. Her rise from poverty speeds up when obscenely wealthy businessman Churchill Travis takes a fancy to her. He offers her a job as his personal assistant and opens his home to the sisters. Churchill's family gives them the cold shoulder, but then (wouldn't you know it?) the son who resisted Liberty the most becomes smitten with the stunning interloper. Just when Liberty seems to be on the primrose path, Hardy saunters back into the picture and stirs up trouble. The author unabashedly and unsubtly capitalizes on Texas stereotypes: Big-haired, long-nailed women lust for the trappings of wealth; headstrong oilmen have fiery tempers and rapacious sexual appetites. But she also knows when to let the plot runwild and when to pull on the reins. Sinfully pleasurable melodrama. First printing of 225,000. Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris Agency
I'm very excited about this book and can't wait for it. I'm glad to know it's not a stinker because a) I love Lisa Kleypas and b) it's her first effort away from AVON and I want her to succeed! I wonder which hero I will love the most.....love triangle...sounds like both men are worth having. I have a feeling it'll be Hardy (oily beau hunk hero #1)...or maybe Gage (rich heir hero #2). Sounds a lot like her historicals which is good, with Hardy playing the rugged stable boy turned successful businessman, Gage the rich and arrogant duke and Liberty the bluestocking whom they both fall in love with. Who will win? Is it called SUGAR DADDY for a reason? Will the heroine just tell both men to f-off and get together with Gage's rich old dad??? I need to know!!!
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7 comments:
LOL! You crack me up! Actually, I'm really looking forward to this, too. For the same reasons you mentioned. Plus, I want to see if LK can pull off a contemp after so many historicals. We shall see, we shall see.
Take it from a librarian - that is a really good review from Kirkus. Seriously, they hate everything - and if a romance author can walk away without a "zinger" tossed in at the end of the review she should consider opening a bottle of the bubbly.
Damn ~ I wasn't going to read this one. I didn't like the fact that LK was trying a contemporary. But now it sounds good and I want to read it. Damn, damn, damn.
I'm excited for this one, too. But shoot, I didn't realize it was a hardcover. Dang. I bet my library won't have it, either, which means I'll have to spend a fortune on it. I won't be able to wait, I'm sure.
You know it isn't a bad book? So you always, always, always agree with these reviewers?
*g*
The only Kleypas book I didn't like...really really didn't like was MIDNIGHT ANGEL. I love all of her works...I might be biased but I do...that + the reviews = I will probably like the book.
Hey, found your blog on the upcoming LK "Sugar Daddy" - cannot wait for its release next month. I'm just a little nervous as to who she's going to end up with (hero-wise) . . . I'm kinda liking Gage b/c love those "love-spats" for chemistry . . . excerpt was a link from RomanceBuyTheBook.com
Excerpt: 'Sugar Daddy'
By Lisa Kleypas
The heroine of Sugar Daddy, Liberty Jones, works for the billionaire Churchill Travis, who has broken his leg in a riding accident. The oldest Travis son, Gage, has made it clear that Liberty and the eight year-old sister she is raising by herself are not welcome at the family mansion ...
Every time Gage Travis looked at me, you could tell he wanted to tear me limb from limb. Not in a fury, but in a process of slow and methodical dismemberment.
The day we moved in, our possessions crammed into cardboard boxes, I thought Gage would throw me out bodily. I had begun to unpack in the bedroom I had chosen, a beautiful space with wide windows and pale moss-green walls, and cream-colored molding. What had decided me on the room was the grouping of black and white photographs on one wall. They were Texas images; a cactus, a bob-wire fence, a horse, and to my delight, a front shot of an armadillo looking straight into the camera.
As I opened my suitcase on the king-size bed, Gage appeared in the doorway. My fingers curled around the edge of the suitcase, my knuckles jutting until you could have shredded carrots on them. Even knowing I was reasonably safe--surely Churchill would keep him from killing me--I was still alarmed. He filled up the doorway, looking big and mean and pitiless.
"What the hell are you doing here?" His soft voice unsettled me far more than shouting would have.
I answered through dry lips. "Churchill said I could choose any room I wanted."
"You can either leave voluntarily, or I'll throw you out. Believe me, you'd rather go on your own."
I didn't move. "You have a problem, you talk to your father. He wants me here."
"I don't give a damn. Get going."
A little trickle of sweat went down the middle of my back. I didn't move.
He reached me in three strides and took my upper arm in a painful grip.
A gasp of surprise was torn from my throat. "Take your hands off me!" I strained and shoved at him, but his chest was as unyielding as the trunk of a live oak.
"I told you before I wasn't going to--" He broke off. I was released with a suddenness that caused me to stagger back a step. Our sharp respirations pierced the silence. He was staring at the dresser, where I had set out a few pictures in standup frames. Trembling, I put my hand on the part of my arm he'd gripped. I rubbed the spot as if to erase his touch. But I could still feel an invisible handprint embedded in my skin.
He went to the dresser and picked up one of the photos. "Who is this?"
It was a picture of Mama, taken not long after she'd married my father. She had been impossibly young and blonde and beautiful. "Don't touch that," I cried, rushing forward to snatch the photo from him.
"Who is it?" he repeated.
"My mother."
His head bent as he stood over me, looking into my face with a speculative gaze. I was so bewildered by the abrupt halt of our conflict that I couldn't summon the words to ask what in God's name was going through his mind. I was absurdly conscious of the sound of my breathing, and his, the counterpoint gradually evening until the rhythm of our lungs was identical. Light from the plantation shutters made bright stripes across both of us, casting shadow spokes from his lashes down the crests of his cheek. I could see the whisker grain of his close-shaven skin, foretelling a heavy five o'clock shadow.
I dampened my dry lips with my tongue, and his gaze followed the movement. We were standing too close. I could smell the bite of starch in his collar, and a whiff of warm male skin, and I was shocked by my response. In spite of everything, I wanted to lean even closer. I wanted a deep breath of him.
A frown tugged between his brows. "We're not finished," he muttered, and left the room without another word.
I had no doubt he'd gone straight to Churchill, but it would be a long time before I found out what was said between them, or why Gage had decided to abandon that particular battle.
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