Hello everyone!
This week on 'which book did she pick up from her TBR pile' we go along to a very random one I saw because I subscribe to this newsletter from a different author.
Yeah, sometimes that's how it happens!
I signed up for the Caldwell Courier Journal by J. R. Ward when she first announced it, and one of the sections she does there is reading, or a book club of some sort, which was how I stumbled over tonight's book of choice.
I'd never, up until this point, read anything by Kennedy Ryan, which is a shame since I really like her writing style from what I've seen so far.
Just means I'll be picking up more books by her in the future!
For tonight, however, let+s just focus on the one I ended up reading through pretty much in one sitting. Occasionally, I know what's best for me and make sure that I don't overdo it, but sometimes I also can't help myself.
Queen Move was one of those that grabs you and doesn't let go easily.
The only books I can honestly compare this one too are a couple by Katy Evans, maybe, which I'll be linking down below (and which I really want to read again now, actually), although to be fair Ryan herself has written a duet along those sames lines that I'm dying to get my hands on.
But if I were to describe Queen Move? I'd say the closest I could ever come is Scandal.
The TV show which focused on Kerry Washington's character who was a political 'fixer' who solved problems for the elite of DC, and who also used to run the presidential campaign for the then-sitting president, is pretty much textbook to what you'll be reading in Queen Move, except that there's a whole lot more going on in Queen Move, really.
The book is about Kimba, a woman of colour who's just helped elect the current POTUS, and he just so happens to be married to her best friend (the duet I talked about is about the two of them, and I'm kind of excited to read those books). The two of them together used to run a company which basically focused on running political campaigns, ruthlessly at that, and Kimba is very, VERY good at it.
She originally comes from Atlanta, however, where her family still resides, and she returns there briefly for the funeral of her father, whom she adored.
And it's there that she runs into Ezra again.
Ezra was the Jewish boy she grew up with, her next-door neighbour with whom she shared EVERYTHING (and I mean everything, from getting married at six to their first kiss at thirteen). The problem here is that, when the kids were thirteen, something happened with their families and Ezra moved away, so they haven't seen each other in twenty odd years.
At this point in time, he has a son, and whom Kimba presumes is his wife, so she declines the offer to stay in touch, knowing very well she needs to let him go or else they both could get in trouble.
But a few years after that, Ezra is in trouble himself, because Aiko, his partner (they never actually married) wants an open relationship to sort of salvage theirs, which he isn't having so he breaks it off with her, but readers can pretty much tell immediately that he's the one who thinks it's all over, but she isn't quite there yet, so this is going to come back to bite him in the ass at some point.
Kimba is also in town again, helping with her father's foundation and it's how Ezra and she run into one another again, and it's like a live wire, sparky flying EVERYWHERE.
She reconnects with Mona, the third in their little group of friends who originally lost touch with them as well but has since become Ezra's BFF and next door neighbour, and Mona is the one who warns Kimba not to do anything that might hurt her buddy, since she loves him and Aiko both.
Trouble is, Ezra and Aiko decided not to tell anybody about their split until she returns from a photography thing in Africa (to which she went with a new beau, at that) so that their son can enjoy his birthday without the shadow of their impending separation.
Ezra of course tells Kimba since, you know, he's as interested in renewing their relationship as she is, but everyone else around them doesn't know and so it occasionally looks like they're being judged and thought of as cheaters, when the reality is far from the case.
I also found it interesting how the parents still alive didn't really seem all that keen for the two of them to get together, even though they could very well see they were made for each other.
Of course other hurdles show up in the plot, and boy is there a bunch of them: Kimba is in perimenopause, meaning that her OB-GYN is trying to restart her period again so that she can maybe have a one-year or so span window to get pregnant and have a child, she's gunning for a position to run a political campaign that will put the first Latin American governor on the map, someone wants to publish a biography of her dad with sordid details she doesn't want out in the open, and Ezra himself is preparing for the launch of his own book.
In contrast to Kimba, Ezra started a school to help children from lower income areas and is thriving with his accomplishments back home in Atlanta, which Kimba is also obviously proud of.
And the two of them kind of go at it like rabbits whenever they can, okay? Okay.
Until, that is, they hit the snag of that dirty laundry the biographer wants to release in the book, which they're convinced is wrong since it's about Kimba's dad cheating on her mom with Ezra's mom, but the truth turns out to be wildly different: it was Kimba's MOM cheating on her dad ... with Ezra's mom!
I'll admit I never saw that one coming.
The biographer (niece of this one nosy neighbour they used to have) agrees to Kimba's terms so the book is then covered, and she also goes right on television to field the problem of women whose hair doesn't conform to what people with white skin think it should be, and I swear I didn't even know this kind of thing existed, but apparently it does and there's also a law about it, and ohmyGOD when did our world get this fucked up?
Anyway, she holds a masterful interview and gets hired by the politician so that she'll run his campaign, and also gets her period back so that means she now has a space of time where she can have a baby.
Naturally this will be with Ezra, right?
Except Aiko comes back from her trip early, throws a hissy fit when she finds them together, and announces she's pregnant.
When it turns out it's actually Ezra's child (from a drunken night he can't even remember), Kimba, despite suggestions and advice from others that tell her to see whether or not they could make this work from the get-go, puts a pause on this budding relationship of theirs, saying that she won't be able to survive watching another woman have his baby when she might not be able to. So she goes on the trail with the politician, ends up breaking it off with Ezra for about a year or year and a half, wins, putting the Latin American governor in position AND getting her own brother into office (which she was initially hesitant to do because she didn't really know if he was qualified), and then goes back to Ezra.
Ezra, at this point, has broken things off with Aiko for good and the two of them became good friends instead while caring for their son and newborn daughter, and he bought a house close-by where he and Kimba finally resolve their differences and he asks her to marry him. She says yes, and in a flash-forward where the lot of them are spending Christmas together (and by 'the lot' I mean three grandmothers, a bunch of kids, adults from three families, etc.) and the author reveals Kimba had one miscarriage but is now pregnant again with Ezra's baby, and even though it's almost time for the re-election campaigns for the sitting president, she will do everything to protect her unborn child.
Even sit this one out if she has to.
The end!
Whew. There is A LOT going on in this book, let me tell you, and actually the complaint seen most often in reviews is that there's TOO MUCH happening all at once. I sort of agree in the sense that it was difficult to keep track of everything at certain points, but I suppose that the author knew what she was doing when she tackled all these problems, so kudos to her for that.
Overall, I really enjoyed the story and how it unfolded, the twists and turns were DEFINITELY unexpected, and I'm now interested to read about the sitting president while I can, because Kimba's BFF sounds like an amazing woman.
There were minor things I had a bit of a problem with (not big though), like for instance how Kimba, who never before really wanted a baby, suddenly became pretty much baby-crazy overnight whic didn't seem to mesh with her character for me. She'd never before expressed the desire or even thought about it, and it isn't an issue if a woman doesn't have or want children, it really isn't. I understand that the point of that subplot was to address something that's fairly frequent nowadays, medically speaking, but it could also have been looked at from another angle without problem.
I'm also slightly miffed that Aiko's second kid had to be Ezra's. I was sort of hoping it would've been by the other guy she was with at the time, and really, did we need that complication? No, we didn't honestly, though it all worked out in the end, but not before ANOTHER separation for Ezra and Kimba.
I swear, these two spent more time apart than together.
And before I forget - the beginning of the book was pretty confusing for me. Not because of the flashbacks, but because I often didn't know which of the parents was working overtime and who was busy and not at home, which made it difficult later on when I was told that Kimba's family has deep roots in Atlanta and a long history, plus her dad was this bigwig there. I don't think it's ever REALLY mentioned in the flashbacks, not directly, so that threw me for a loop a little bit.
For the rest, like I said there really was a lot going on and towards the end it feels like the author skimmed over certain things just to get to the end point, but overall, as mentioned before, I DID like this book and I enjoyed reading it.
I'd recommend a Kennedy Ryan original to anyone who asks.
xx
*image not mine - mind, the model on the cover is GORGEOUS
No comments:
Post a Comment