The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. Hoover’s ( November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.Īt first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids.

To the author’s credit, no one-not even Sammy, Charlie or the basically ethical and ultimately heroic Vice President Gary-is without guilt, although love and honor conquer all.ĭespite a few wicked sparks (the reality show starring the ex-president is priceless), Gore’s satire is more affectionate than biting. Not only is Sammy distraught at the state of the free world, but her work is taking its toll on her love life. While the White House operatives scurry to find leakers, Wye denies the drinking. It isn’t long before the Exterminators get wind of the real scandal brewing. Soon after the elder Wye dies, leaving behind an illegitimate presidential half-brother fathered in an assisted-living facility, Sammy witnesses the president being dosed with the experimental Indian drug to counteract his alcoholism.

Gary find themselves acquiescing to Wye’s request to arrange undercover shipments of a still-experimental drug to treat Wye’s Alzheimer’s-ridden father. Then, on a trip to India to work out a trade deal for low-cost pharmaceuticals, Sammy and V.P. She is therefore deeply shaken when she discovers that President Wye, a self-proclaimed reformed drinker, spikes his diet sodas with whiskey. In the face of petty pranks and small exposés perpetrated against the White House by opposition members who call themselves the Exterminators, Sammy remains unperturbed, proud to be an idealistic believer in the new administration. She works on health-care issues for the demanding but good-humored (and yes, fatherly) Gary, while indulging in her own mild hypochondria and waiting for her reporter boyfriend Charlie to propose. Nerdy but pretty Sammy comes to the White House when her boss, the admirable Senator Gary, is elected vice president. In this jokey, sometimes juicy romance-and-politics comedy, the eponymous heroine, who was a senatorial aide in Gore’s first novel ( Sammy’s Hill, 2004), finds herself working in a scandal-ridden White House, territory Al’s daughter obviously knows well.

Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore