A rich story of intrigue and deception with some engaging twists and turns.
Alexander’s historical novel tells a story of Capt. Francis Light, the founder of the British colony in Penang, in what is now Malaysia.
Jim Lloyd starts his career at Fort William in Calcutta, India, where he works under the authority of his father’s representatives in a dissatisfying job as a junior office worker. Jim’s frustration about his work conditions and his desire to have a more consequential job cause him to take notice when a colleague asks, “What fires up yer passion, then?” Later, a chance meeting with trader James Scott inspires Jim to write a letter to Capt. Light and secure a position in Penang’s capital of George Town as an assistant and a “suitable chronicler” of Light’s life, as the latter “desires his name to be in the history books.” Upon arrival in Penang, Jim finds that it’s not the glorious colony that he anticipated but a grim and dangerous place, particularly compared to his earlier living arrangements. Still, as Jim encounters the perils of trade in Penang, he naïvely believes Light’s lies about a colony that Alexander effectively reveals as full of malaria, treachery, thievery, murder, and deceit. The author also spotlights Light’s and other colonists’ racism; for instance, early on, Jim asks to live with the Malay people in hopes of learning more of their religion and culture: “Light looked startled. ‘Whyever would you wish to do that?...You do realize you are asking to reside among pirates, Jim,’ barked Light.” Key to the story is the friendship between Jim and an intriguing Dutchman named Pieter Reinaert, and Alexander adeptly weaves Jim’s relationships into the history of Penang and the British East India Company. Along the way, Alexander reveals Light’s troubling relationship with Sultan Abdullah, the Queda ruler who ceded Penang to the East India Company based on false promises, and the author shows how these lies create tension that has the potential to start a war.
A rich story of intrigue and deception with some engaging twists and turns.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-9814954-42-6
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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