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Saint Lucy of the Cowboys

Name: Saint Lucy of the Cowboys
Author: M. K. Long
ISBN: 978-1497537071

by M. K. Long ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2014

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A meditative debut novel in which two friends take a fateful trip into the Southern California wilderness.
Bean, a stream surveyor for the U.S. Forest Service, takes his lawyer friend Justin hiking through the Navarro River area of Southern California. The idea is get Justin away from the clamor of urban life and take his mind off of his separation from his wife, Medley. Their tale begins at the scorched remains of a cabin, where a man named Crawfurd once lived. The man survived for decades as a hermit, but to Bean’s deep regret, he recently died. Without the pleasure of the older man’s company, Justin and Bean (and his dog, Alice) move on, through a chaparral-covered landscape once occupied by the Chumash Indians. Suddenly, a rattlesnake bites Bean, causing him to stumble among rocks and break his leg. Justin is stunned, and waits for the snake to leave before treating Bean’s bites and setting the broken bone. He then carries his friend to their camp, where they agree that Justin will hike downstream for help from the ranger station. The trek, however, is fraught with perilous river narrows. Do the friends stand a chance of seeing each other again? Debut author Long captures the Navarro valley’s majestic aura on every page: “The bottoms of the canyons were rich green, the result of the alder, sycamore, and cottonwood that grew in the wetter recesses folded between the ridges.” After the snake bites Bean, Long creates tension that most thriller writers would envy; when Justin must drain the venom, for example, he wonders “whether he was saving or killing his friend.” The story also features spirit guides, Xewe and Saint Lucy, and their presence is a fascinating aspect of the narrative, but the author uses them sparingly. Instead, he prefers flashbacks into Bean’s and Justin’s pasts, and a few too many of these slow the pace. However, most of the novel is concerned with loftier subjects, such as how to attain true happiness, and how not to let mistakes weigh heavily on the soul.
A well-rounded, ambitious adventure tale.

Pub Date: June 9, 2014

ISBN: 978-1497537071

Page Count: 216

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.