An engaging, insightful portrait of infidelity, told with charm.
British novelist Rayner has a talent for turning domestic tragedies (widowhood, infertility and, in this latest, adultery) into something quite special—amusing and astute studies in human resilience.
Maggie wants another baby, and why not? She and Jamie have a lovely Georgian house near London; Jamie has recently been promoted to publisher at a magazine company; their 6-year-old, Nathan, is a dream; and her own freelance writing career makes few demands. But Jamie bristles at the idea, and he isn't sure why. Chloë has her own kind of baby in mind: A features editor at Jamie's company, she wants to launch her own women’s magazine, something edgy and smart. When Chloë approaches him to pitch her special project, their business meeting turns into drinks, then a meal, then some public groping before they head to Chloë’s apartment for sex. Jamie assures Chloë he’s never done anything like it before (well, just that one other time), and the two fall into a passionate affair. He takes Chloë to New York for a conference—they get to play house for a week while Maggie stays behind taking care of the drudgeries of a real home. What distinguishes Rayner’s novel is that Maggie and Chloë, both lovely and worth cheering for, get equal attention—there's no demonized woman, no nagging wife or opportunistic vixen (though Jamie is not what he first seems). Maggie begins to suspect something is awry and confides in her friend Jean (Chloë’s former boss, who knows too much); meanwhile, Chloë feels guilty and desperately in love but is warned against hoping for a happily-ever-after from her flatmate, Rob. Eventually, Maggie confronts Jamie, but what are a wife and girlfriend to do when the man in their lives can’t choose between them? And what does a novelist do to give her heroines the endings they deserve? Rayner plays it just right in the war zone of love.
An engaging, insightful portrait of infidelity, told with charm.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04559-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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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