Dune Road

June 15, 2009
In the latest inviting summer read from bestseller Green (The Beach House), divorced mom Kit Hargrove learns about family, love, and the price of secrets while rediscovering passion for life and her small Connecticut beach town. As the off-season begins, Kit is still recovering from the breakup of her marriage (to solicitous but work-obsessed Adam), working for famously reclusive author Robert McClore, and practicing yoga with her new friend Tracy. Upheaval soon arrives in the form of a mysterious new boyfriend and a long-lost sister, as well as a scandalous secret regarding Kit's much-desired employer. Green's newest has all the right elements for a sun-baked afternoon of reading: sandy locales, hints of sex and scandal, and lots of strong female characters. With three main plots, however, Green tries to pack in too much story, ultimately shortchanging her characters and her readers.

May 15, 2009
British author Green (The Beach House, 2008, etc.) has moved from England to Connecticut, and her novel's heroines have fallen suit.

Exit the chippy London career girl looking for love and a sample sale, enter the New England mother questioning whether there is a bit more to life than the requisite diamond-stud earrings and showcase country house. This is what Kit wondered before she divorced Adam, but now two years later, she is finally fulfilled. The mansion, and the prestige of being married to one of Wall Street's players, is gone. Still, in Highfield (think Greenwich), the mansion has been replaced with a charming house a few blocks from Main Street, and she now has an eccentric and perfectly indispensable new neighbor in octogenarian Edie. Best yet, she has a great job as personal assistant to Robert McClore (think Tom Clancy). The kids have adjusted, her friends Charlie and Tracy are lovely. In fact, everything is terrific. Until it isn't. There are clouds on the horizon: America's financial crisis is about to hit this community hard; Tracy begins to woo Robert (his first wife, a wild-child model, died in a boating accident—or was it?— in the swinging'70s); and Annabel, a British half-sister Kit has just found out about, shows up. Green's novel begins lightly and then shifts gears, producing a kind of thriller-lite effect. A few key players have some nasty intentions, and Kit has to sort it all out. Meanwhile, she is trying to decide if her new romantic interest (the dishy Steve, who is literally too good to be true) can compare with Adam, whom she is beginning to think she still loves. Green has some good fun with the shallow lifestyles of the ladies who lunch, and by the end the greedy are punished and the good (that would be Kit) prevail.

The competing styles—chatty friendships, shopping, middle-aged enlightenment and crime/suspense—make for a disjointed read.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 15, 2009
If the financial crisis hit "Desperate Housewives'" Wisteria Lane, the result would be Green's ("The Beach House") latest novel. After a meandering initial 100 pages, the plot involving a group of fortyish girlfriends finally takes shape. Each of the three friends finds herself in the middle of her own soap opera: Kit's newly discovered half sister is sneaking around with her ex-husband, Charlie's silver spoon is yanked from her mouth when her banker husband loses his job, and Tracy's abusive first husband threatens to reveal her past to her friends. Life in the bedroom community of Highfield, CT, can't escape the chaos that the Wall Street crash inflicts. When the town's local celebrityan infamous and reclusive authoropens his Dune Road home for a party, the drama of these residents is suddenly out there for all to see. VERDICT Whether you care about these characters or not is irrelevant in this quick, easy beach read. Green's name on the cover will be enough to attract interest. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/09.]Anika Fajardo, St. Catherine Univ. Lib., St. Paul, MN

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2009
Kit Hargroves divorce has been remarkably civil, and its allowed her to move out of the huge, cold house shes never liked into a smaller home with her two children. Kit finds a job as an assistant to a famous but reclusive thriller writer named Robert McClore, who lost his wife decades ago in a boating accident. Kit isnt sure how she feels about her friend Tracys pointed interest in Robert, but shes soon distracted by Steve, a handsome new man whos just moved to town. This novel offers some surprising twists at the midpoint, when a mysterious young woman shows up claiming to be Kits half-sister, and Tracys past catches up to her. Green has smoothly transitioned from twentysomething chick lit set in Britain (Jemina J, 2000, and Mr. Maybe, 2001) to fortysomething womens novels set on Americas East Coast, and her latest engaging read is bound to please the many fans who have followed her over.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)