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BEGUILED

Anne Rice's older sister, an energetic scene-setter, winds up her two-volume saga of tenth-century Europe begun with 1995's Devoted. A romance with elements of fantasy, Devoted told of the clash between Christianity and paganism. A raiding party of Vikings invaded the bishopric of Chantalon. Facing them were Chantalon's 23-year-old bishop, Owen, and his wife, Lady Elin of the Forest People, a pagan witch who called forth storms to drown the invaders. Borchardt wades into her sequel now with the returned Northmen trying to take charge of the river on which Chantalon lies. Owen and Elin discover this while they are out spying, looking over the Northmen's winter buildup for a spring offensive. Each page of Borchardt's relentless novel is composed of three parts gripping research and description to one part plot: A great deal of action is required to keep the narrative lively, and Borchardt supplies it. Movie stunts invade the script as well, with an unlikely swordfight between Owen and the Viking Hakon staged in the mud. Though Elin's witch-powers help rescue Owen from the Northmen, who have their own witches, she becomes pregnant after being raped by a Viking, while, throughout, she and Owen waver between ardor and recriminations. Since Chantalon hasn't enough men to defend itself for long, much less launch an attack against Hakon, Owen goes off to Britanny in search of allies, where he's offered help if he'll renounce Elin and marry a nobleman's daughter. Desperate, he agrees. Meanwhile, Hakon sends 12 berserkers to kill Owen and to steal Gynneth, Owen's bride. Although Owen (befriended by a philosopher magician, Elutides) slays the 12, Hakon nevertheless captures Elin, who's about to give birth, causing Owen to return for a final showdown with the Viking. Skulls split down to the teeth while hormonal interplay again reaches the same pulsing soft-porn hazes as in Devoted. Basically a lusty romance, with a gory overlay of duels and ambushes. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 1997

ISBN: 0-525-94272-6

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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