A compelling story of love, war, and fierce family loyalty.
Borchert continues her Château de Verzat series with this historical novel set in the chaos of Napoleonic France.
This novel follows the central characters from the author’s previous series installments—Her Own Legacy (2022) and Her Own Revolution (2023)—into the later stages of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. The story begins in 1797, when the leadership of the French Republic is taxing landowners to pay for endless wars against European adversaries. They also issue decrees expelling aristocrats suspected of collaborating with the nation’s enemies and threatening those who remain with execution by guillotine. Overseeing the vineyards at Château de Verzat, a beautiful estate in the Loire Valley, Geneviève and Louis LaGarde use all of their skills to shield the land from government confiscation and to protect their aristocratic friends, siblings Joliette and Henri de Verzat, from the guillotine. To make matters worse, Henri’s wife, Aurélia, a former enslaved woman from the United States, is pursued and kidnapped by a lecherous slave trader who intends to sell her into servitude as a sex worker. “I lurched as it dawned on me that Aurélia had been sold and would be forced to have sex—with many men,” Geneviève thinks. “A vinegary taste filled my mouth.” Geneviève’s heroic but risky rescue efforts lead to her arrest, and she is imprisoned in squalid conditions while expecting her first child. This compels Louis to navigate France’s rapidly shifting politics and support Napoleon’s mad ambition for military glory in order to save his wife and friends from untold suffering. The path he chooses takes him far from France and exposes Geneviève to greater dangers as she tries to hold her young family together. This novel is well written and enjoyably paced—the chapters effectively alternate between the perspectives and experiences of the major characters. While the narrative stays true to the social mores of the French Revolutionary era, Borchert gives her readers powerful and active female characters who often cunningly use conventional gender expectations to conceal their real motives and actions. Fans of historical fiction will find this novel a most captivating read.
A compelling story of love, war, and fierce family loyalty.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
