Kirkus Praises ‘Love on the Perimeter’
Kirkus Reviews calls Love on the Perimeter an “appealingly breakneck novel that cries out for a sequel.” Congratulations to author Lloyd Devereux Richards! Pre-order this romantic thriller now. Signed copies will be available at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier.
The review reads:
Llewelyn Davies struggles to fill the void left by his mother’s passing. He also yearns to escape the deadening routines of his grandmother’s sheep farm, which makes him think that a camping trip to the Canadian Northwoods will be the perfect tonic. Soon, he meets Eloise Broom, who’s haunted by her younger brother’s fatal fall through an icy pond years ago, and they grow closer after comparing their struggles: “Her wounded spirit canceled part of his, even if only for the moment.” Their idyll is shattered, however, after their lead counselor, Neil, is killed along with two others by a mysterious floatplane’s gun-toting crew. The discovery of $200,000 packed into a lockbox only raises the stakes, and calls to camp operator Murphy Campbell and Eloise’s stepfather, Norman Fothergill, fail to ease the couple’s anxieties. The money belongs to Luca Malgeri, a belligerent Toronto mobster who’s eager to reclaim it by any means necessary; this pits him against Qith, an Indigenous loner with a penchant for traps, and Franz, who’s equally adept at crafting devices to kill Malgeri’s henchmen (like Home Alone, redone by the Marquis de Sade, perhaps). The most important thing in life, Qith colorfully informs the couple, is to create defenses against the world’s evils: “Your life ain’t worth shit without a perimeter,” he asserts. It’s a memorable concept that changes Llewelyn and Eloise’s outlook as they work to survive the terrain and their pursuers, once the action shifts back to the farm. Readers will appreciate Llewelyn and Eloise’s resourcefulness and vulnerability, along with the brisk narrative pacing, and the villains’ colorful dialogue.