Fans of the Leelee novels (and of Kissie) will be happy to find their heroine’s life happily resolved, though the occasional...
Patton’s third novel featuring Southern belle Leelee Satterfield (Yankee Doodle Dixie, 2011, etc.) is rich on atmosphere and charm if short on plot.
After her husband, Baker, convinced her to move from ancestral Memphis to Vermont to follow his dream of owning a B&B and then left her for the artificially enhanced owner of a ski resort, Leelee is happily back home in Memphis and on the verge of opening her own restaurant. Chef Peter Owen (who was at her inn in Vermont) is working with Leelee to make the transplanted Peach Blossom Inn the finest French restaurant in Tennessee. They are also working together on a soul-mate kind of romance, although his Yankee directness takes some getting used to, as does Leelee’s Southern politeness (or lying, as Peter would call it). Leelee is finally taking some ownership for her life, which is a big step for someone raised to be a daughter and a wife. Thankfully, she has Kissie for guidance, Leelee’s old nanny who is now looking after her daughters, Sarah and Issie, doling out mammy-style wisdom and sassiness in equal measure. Then Leelee gets a cease and desist letter from a lawyer: the current owner of the Peach Blossom Inn in Vermont (the evil Helga) has copyrighted the name, and Leelee’s restaurant can’t open until everything is sorted out. When ex-husband Baker comes scooting back for reconciliation, Leelee considers it for the sake of the girls, though it drives Peter away. Patton has a large cast of loopy characters, offering all the comedy in the story. If only there were a little bit more story.
Fans of the Leelee novels (and of Kissie) will be happy to find their heroine’s life happily resolved, though the occasional slog through insignificant details may test their patience.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-02065-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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