For the Record

The too-tidy conclusion to Linde’s Record Trilogy wraps up the fraught romance between UNC journalism student Liz Dougherty and Brady Maxwell, the scion of a North Carolina political family. In the aftermath of On the Record, Liz and Brady’s relationship is now public for all the world to scrutinize and judge. While Liz learns how to be a celebrity significant other, she has to juggle graduating, her post-graduation career, and making peace with Hayden, the ex-boyfriend who outed her to the press. Much of this volume feels like a summary of Liz’s life, skipping forward to moments of conflict that feel too constructed to hold tension and are resolved much too simply. Most of the women are snippy and most of the men are desperate for supportive companionship, an uncomfortable dynamic that severely undercuts the genuine passion and compatibility defining the main romance. Readers will be left wishing Linde had done more with this extended epilogue. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (Nov.)