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A DEADLY AFFECTION

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In Overholt’s historical mystery, a young female doctor in early-20th-century New York must solve a bloody murder for which she feels partially responsible.

In 1905 Dr. Genevieve Summerford finished third in her class at John Hopkins only to have her father disapprove of her decision to run a psychology research class for women with emotional trauma—a concerted effort in an emerging field to help people better their lives and prove that thoughts and feelings can influence body functions and health. Eliza Miner, a woman in Genevieve’s study group, confides that she’d had a baby as a teenager that was taken from her by her doctor. Discussing the incident and options of confronting the doctor regarding the location of the now 20-year-old child, Genevieve’s advice is misconstrued, and the following day the doctor is found brutally murdered—with Eliza standing over him covered in blood. Desperate to prove the innocence of her patient, find the real killer and salve her guilt for the inadvertent part she may have played, Genevieve must overcome a mountain of circumstantial evidence, confront a very powerful and influential family and subvert the stubbornness of the investigating officer who refuses to look any further than Eliza Miner. When Genevieve runs into Simon Shaw, a sordid reminder of her painful past, she realizes that the man who broke her heart may be the only one who can give her hope. Genevieve’s story is compelling, from her difficult childhood that encompasses the travesty of bearing the blame for the death of her younger brother to the tragedy of losing her innocence to a naive teenage indiscretion, with both bearing equal weight of guilt. Though she longs for the acceptance and forgiveness of her father, Genevieve’s unwavering determination to her profession allows her to remain steadfast and true. Replete with formal gowns and annual winter balls, Overholt’s novel successfully captures the feel and tone of 20th-century New York in a deeply pleasing, nostalgically modern way. A solid plot pulls the reader in with little effort, while strong, flowing prose and captivating characters provide the incentive to remain to the very last page. In Dr. Genevieve Summerford, Overholt has beautifully rendered a symbol of strength and perseverance in a time of severe gender bias. A well-paced, 20th-century whodunit full of dark secrets and fascinating intrigue that easily keeps pace with 21st-century standards.

 

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0984841301

Page Count: 454

Publisher: Copper Bottom

Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2011

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THE ALCHEMIST

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind. 

 The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. 

 Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Pub Date: July 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-250217-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

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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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