A dense, thorny romance full of multidimensional, morally ambiguous characters struggling to find peace despite sins of the...
Equal parts family drama and shadowy romance, a story about three sisters in love with the same man.
Forrest, in her debut novel, writes of love, loss and the danger of keeping secrets. Showcasing a large cast of characters, the novel centers on Laura Abbott, an international celebrity who performs under the name Cat Courtney. She’s the youngest of the Abbott sisters, musical daughters of a domineering, abusive man who murdered his own wife by throwing her into the sea years before the novel’s opening. As the story begins, readers learn that Laura is still very much obsessed with Richard Ashmore, an iconic figure from her past. Richard was her childhood crush, though he ultimately married her oldest sister, Diana. At the tail end of her traumatic childhood, Laura ran away from home, likely never to return. She made a new life for herself under her alias, married a wealthy man, moved to London and refused to accept any contact from her family. However, after her husband is killed in the attacks on 9/11, Laura yearns for the people she had sworn off years before. At long last, she returns to her childhood home in Virginia, digging up old ghosts and confronting her demons. As the complex plot unfolds, Forrest frequently peppers the present with varying layers of flashback. Laura tries to move forward and mend old wounds, revealing an increasing amount about the many secrets and mistakes of her past. As time shifts through this complicated story, readers must work hard to keep up and piece together the details of Laura and Richard’s harrowing history. The story contains unexpected darkness and foreboding that lurk in the hearts of her characters and in the themes of the story itself. A cliffhanger ending promises a sequel or two.
A dense, thorny romance full of multidimensional, morally ambiguous characters struggling to find peace despite sins of the past.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1941521014
Page Count: 522
Publisher: St. John Publishing Group, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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