In The Hundred Loves of Juliet, her first book for adults, Evelyn Skye (Three Kisses, One Midnight, with Roshani Chokshi and Sandhya Menon) spins a mesmerizing tale of heartbreak and hope, one that spans centuries, to give Romeo and Juliet the happy ending they deserve. It's January, and Helene Janssen has abandoned her dead-end job and cheating husband in Los Angeles for a remote Alaskan fishing town. She's been writing snippets of stories all her life, centered on the imaginary friend she created in middle school, which she now wants to turn into a novel. But then the man who stars in her short stories walks into the bar where Helene finds herself on her first night in Alaska. When she approaches Sebastien, though, he responds with brusque rudeness and flees the bar. Sebastien, for his part, is shaken. He is in fact the immortal Romeo, who didn't die the way Shakespeare would have everyone believe, but lives on, cursed to fall in love with Juliet's reincarnations only to lose her to an early death over and over. He had found Helene, the newest Juliet reincarnation, 10 years ago and had chosen to leave her to her own life for a chance of happiness. But fate clearly has other plans. Together, Helene and Sebastien might have a chance at breaking the curse once and for all.
Tender and passionate, The Hundred Loves of Juliet celebrates the intensity of living in the moment and of believing in the immense power of love. Readers will fall in love with Sebastien and Helene as they fall in love with each other. --Dainy Bernstein, postdoc in children's literature, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign