An enjoyable, informative historical drama.
An entertaining debut historical novel about Chinese immigrants fighting for love and equality in the old West.
In 1879, Mei-Yin’s father promised her hand in marriage to her first love, Hok-Ling. The price: three years’ wages from working on railroads in the “Gold Mountain”—the American West. By 1882, however, Hok-Ling still has not returned, and Mei Yin’s father gambles Mei-Yin away to a strange man at the mahjong table. Mei-Yin is devastated and runs away to search for Hok-Ling in America herself. Disguised as a man, Mei-Yin stows away on a ship bound for California, and she eventually locates Hok-Ling in Sandpoint, Idaho. But her dreams of a fairy-tale reunion are quickly shattered when Roger Langston, Sandpoint’s sheriff, is found murdered under the local Sand Creek Bridge, and the townspeople accuse Hok-Ling of murder. Mei-Yin believes all hope is lost—until she hears that recent Harvard graduate and attorney-in-training Jason McQuade will represent Hok-Ling in his trial. McQuade believes in equality for all men, and wants to make sure that Hok-Ling will receive a fair trial. However, after he meets and becomes enraptured with Mei-Yin, he finds himself torn between his desire to have her and his desire for justice. Wyatt’s novel offers an unusual look at the era of westward expansion and 19th-century American racism and xenophobia. The stories of the star-crossed lovers and the murder trial are suspenseful and compelling throughout, although, at times, the plot feels somewhat contrived; for example, readers may find it hard to believe that Mei-Yin, a poor woman unable to speak English, would be able to locate Hok-Ling in Idaho without assistance. In the end, however, what the novel lacks in plausibility it makes up with captivating storytelling, well-developed characters and a moving message about equal rights.
An enjoyable, informative historical drama.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-0988238800
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Highland House Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
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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