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Heat Wave
Book by Delinsky, Barbara
240 pages, Library Binding
First published September 1, 1987
1 person is currently reading
167 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Delinsky
309 books4,362 followersI was born and raised in suburban Boston. My mother’s death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom dancing lessons. I went to summer camp through my fifteenth year (in Maine, which explains the setting of so many of my stories), then spent my sixteenth summer learning to type and to drive (two skills that have served me better than all of my other high school courses combined). I earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. The motivation behind the M.A. was sheer greed. My husband was just starting law school. We needed the money.
Following graduate school, I worked as a researcher with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and as a photographer and reporter for the Belmont Herald. I did the newspaper work after my first son was born. Since I was heavily into taking pictures of him, I worked for the paper to support that habit. Initially, I wrote only in a secondary capacity, to provide copy for the pictures I took. In time, I realized that I was better at writing than photography. I used both skills doing volunteer work for hospital groups, and have served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and on the MGH’s Women’s Cancer Advisory Board.
I became an actual writer by fluke. My twins were four when, by chance, I happened on a newspaper article profiling three female writers. Intrigued, I spent three months researching, plotting, and writing my own book - and it sold.
My niche? I write about the emotional crises that we face in our lives. Readers identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I'm an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not-so-everyday challenges.
My novels are character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship, and I’ve been blessed in having readers who buy them eagerly enough to put them on the major bestseller lists. One of my latest, Sweet Salt Air, came out in 2013. Blueprints, my second novel with St. Martin’s Press, became my 22nd New York Times bestselling novel soon after its release in June 2015. Making Up, my work in progress, will be published in 2018.
2018? Yikes. I didn’t think I’d live that long. I thought I’d die of breast cancer back in the 1900's, like my mom. But I didn’t. I was diagnosed nearly twenty years ago, had surgery and treatment, and here I am, stronger than ever and loving having authored yet another book, this one the non-fiction Uplift: Secrets From the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. First published in 2001, Uplift is a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes that I compiled with the help of 350 breast cancer survivors, their families and friends. These survivors just ... blew me away! They gave me the book that I wish I’d had way back when I was diagnosed. There is no medical information here, nothing frightening, simply practical advice from friends who’ve had breast cancer. The 10th Anniversary Volume of Uplift is now in print. And the money I’ve made on the book? Every cent has gone to my charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/bdelinsky
Look for my photos on Instagram: instagram.com/barbaradelinsky
Following graduate school, I worked as a researcher with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and as a photographer and reporter for the Belmont Herald. I did the newspaper work after my first son was born. Since I was heavily into taking pictures of him, I worked for the paper to support that habit. Initially, I wrote only in a secondary capacity, to provide copy for the pictures I took. In time, I realized that I was better at writing than photography. I used both skills doing volunteer work for hospital groups, and have served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and on the MGH’s Women’s Cancer Advisory Board.
I became an actual writer by fluke. My twins were four when, by chance, I happened on a newspaper article profiling three female writers. Intrigued, I spent three months researching, plotting, and writing my own book - and it sold.
My niche? I write about the emotional crises that we face in our lives. Readers identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I'm an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not-so-everyday challenges.
My novels are character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship, and I’ve been blessed in having readers who buy them eagerly enough to put them on the major bestseller lists. One of my latest, Sweet Salt Air, came out in 2013. Blueprints, my second novel with St. Martin’s Press, became my 22nd New York Times bestselling novel soon after its release in June 2015. Making Up, my work in progress, will be published in 2018.
2018? Yikes. I didn’t think I’d live that long. I thought I’d die of breast cancer back in the 1900's, like my mom. But I didn’t. I was diagnosed nearly twenty years ago, had surgery and treatment, and here I am, stronger than ever and loving having authored yet another book, this one the non-fiction Uplift: Secrets From the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. First published in 2001, Uplift is a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes that I compiled with the help of 350 breast cancer survivors, their families and friends. These survivors just ... blew me away! They gave me the book that I wish I’d had way back when I was diagnosed. There is no medical information here, nothing frightening, simply practical advice from friends who’ve had breast cancer. The 10th Anniversary Volume of Uplift is now in print. And the money I’ve made on the book? Every cent has gone to my charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/bdelinsky
Look for my photos on Instagram: instagram.com/barbaradelinsky
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 23, 2024
If you've ever wordlessly met a stranger's eyes and felt an instant connection, this one will intrigue you. Every night, during the most intense summer heat, two strangers see each other across a courtyard. They start spinning sultry fantasies about each other until one day...they finally meet.
A favorite from back in the day, and a little dated, but it still holds up for the most part. For a category romance novel, this one really takes its time to build the slow burn of attraction and all the details of their separate lives.
3.5 stars
The artist did a really great job on this cover. The sheen of sweat on their bodies, her silk slip, his tanned muscles...all so in keeping with the story.
A favorite from back in the day, and a little dated, but it still holds up for the most part. For a category romance novel, this one really takes its time to build the slow burn of attraction and all the details of their separate lives.
3.5 stars
The artist did a really great job on this cover. The sheen of sweat on their bodies, her silk slip, his tanned muscles...all so in keeping with the story.
August 3, 2018
This is a compilation of two of Delinsky’s early novels. She published them together because they followed a common theme - feeling a quick common attraction. They are simple stories. They don’t pretend to be anything else. Enjoyable.
August 16, 2017
Много елементарна и клиширана история! Очаквах леко четиво, но наивността на героите и глупавите диалози доста ме подразниха.
April 27, 2021
[movie trailer voice] It might be titled Heat Wave, but this is one chill book.
Ok, puns aside, this was...a weird one for me. I hadn't read any Barbara Delinsky before, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but the era of category this is from left me braced for some wild crazysauce. Instead, it felt like...nothing really happened in this book. And I don't think I just mean by the standards of other category romances where there is PLOT happening every other word, I think this was just a book that was not heavily driven by plot. It kind of read more like erotica than a romance novel--not in the level of explicit detail particularly, just in terms of the pacing and the lingering on the characters fantasizing about each other, rather than interacting with each othere. Although maybe that's unavoidable if you base a book around the idea that two people looking across their balconies get together and live out their fantasies.
Maybe the languid pacing was meant to evoke the humid DC heat the characters were dealing with, and I can't say I mind the lack of category romance crammed-in angst. To me, though, so little happened, and so proportionally less time was spent developing the characters' relationship (compared to their fantasies of the other person), that it felt like there was no conflict. Which is its own kind of fantasy, I guess, but real humans (of any gender) who always do the right thing and feel the way you hope they'd feel (aside from era-appropriate misogyny, I guess) are great to be around in real life (if they actually exist at all), but...kind of boring to read about. Or at least that was my experience with this book.
Ok, puns aside, this was...a weird one for me. I hadn't read any Barbara Delinsky before, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but the era of category this is from left me braced for some wild crazysauce. Instead, it felt like...nothing really happened in this book. And I don't think I just mean by the standards of other category romances where there is PLOT happening every other word, I think this was just a book that was not heavily driven by plot. It kind of read more like erotica than a romance novel--not in the level of explicit detail particularly, just in terms of the pacing and the lingering on the characters fantasizing about each other, rather than interacting with each othere. Although maybe that's unavoidable if you base a book around the idea that two people looking across their balconies get together and live out their fantasies.
Maybe the languid pacing was meant to evoke the humid DC heat the characters were dealing with, and I can't say I mind the lack of category romance crammed-in angst. To me, though, so little happened, and so proportionally less time was spent developing the characters' relationship (compared to their fantasies of the other person), that it felt like there was no conflict. Which is its own kind of fantasy, I guess, but real humans (of any gender) who always do the right thing and feel the way you hope they'd feel (aside from era-appropriate misogyny, I guess) are great to be around in real life (if they actually exist at all), but...kind of boring to read about. Or at least that was my experience with this book.
October 26, 2021
Read this without knowing that another book was in the same cover. Did not get to the second one, but HEAT WAVE was a lovely little love story. No mystery, no moral, no villian. Just a love story, and I enjoyed it. Barbara D. knows how to write whatever is in demand, and does it well.
March 15, 2009
A wonderful fantasy tale of a couple that meet as a result of watching each other through the windows of their apartments.
Its the kind of story that we all wish would happen to us, but of course, never does.
Barbara Delinsky is one of the best romance authors out there.
Its the kind of story that we all wish would happen to us, but of course, never does.
Barbara Delinsky is one of the best romance authors out there.
October 24, 2015
I'm sure glad the edition I read didn't have this pulp fiction cover on it--I'd never have picked it up. And I would have missed an adorable, original love story!
February 15, 2016
Superficial
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews