A ponderously ornate, red herring–replete, but mildly diverting mystery.
Lady Emily Ashton returns, this time to decipher Marie Antoinette’s letters, solve a pair of murders and stop a pretender to the Bourbon throne.
Alluring widow of substance Emily would prefer to enjoy her usual pursuits: translating Homer, drinking port (an outré tipple for Victorian ladies) and keeping suitors, such as dashing Colin Hargreaves and Duke Jeremy Bainbridge, at bay. But it’s the London Season, and Emily’s mother is pressing her to remarry while her friends want her to circulate. Society is lionizing a newcomer, Charles Berry. Claiming direct lineage to Louis XVI, he aims to topple the République and claim his throne. Emily is repelled by Charles, who’s angling to groom her as his future Madame de Pompadour, but these petty concerns soon fade: Her townhouse is invaded by a cat burglar who specializes in the former property of Marie Antoinette. The burglar also papers Emily with billets-doux in ancient Greek. After she convinces an acquaintance, David Francis, to report the theft of his pink diamond (another of Marie’s treasures), David and his valet turn up dead, both poisoned by nicotine-laced shaving cream. A housemaid is charged with both murders when the nicotine, an aphid-killer, is traced to her gardener lover. Hargreaves repairs to France, where he’ll work behind the scenes to thwart Charles’s ambitions. Meanwhile, Emily starts decoding a packet of letters given her by Beatrice, David’s widow. They are Marie Antoinette’s letters from prison to a trusted confidant who was supervising the care of her son, the dauphin. While nimbly sidestepping attempts on her life and assaults on her reputation, Emily cracks the letters’ coded plans: to smuggle the dauphin to England in the care of a servant. When her burglar reveals himself as a descendant of the servant family sworn to protect the Bourbon heirs, she deduces the real identities of David Francis and his illegitimate son, whose secret she must guard until she decides whether to marry again.
A ponderously ornate, red herring–replete, but mildly diverting mystery.Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-117414-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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