A small-town riff on The Great Gatsby suffers from underdeveloped characters.
An ambitious family’s rise and fall plays out in a small town on the Maine coast.
This debut novel opens with what will also be its last scene: a fancy lawn party and lobster bake on the waterfront property of the Thatch family, prominent in the little town of Damariscotta. A celebration of the Amherst College women’s lacrosse team, of which Allie Thatch is a member, it’s a nice party until local English teacher and lacrosse coach Andrew goes poking around in the house and notices some photos of a burned car with two bodies in it—and then the police show up. The book’s narrator, Andrew was raised in Damariscotta, went away for college and jobs, but has moved his young family back. Andrew sometimes narrates in first person, although much of the story is framed as interviews he does after the day of the party for a book he’s writing. He’s known Ed Thatch since they were teenagers, when Andrew worked for the Lobster Pound, owned by Ed’s father, and Ed treated him like a greenhorn. Ed’s life changed when he met Stephanie LeClair. Although, as one character says, “they don’t come from much,” Steph wants nice things and Ed wants her to have them. Circling between past and present, the book recounts how they get them. While he’s fishing for lobsters, Ed starts burglarizing the posh summer homes along the shore during the off season. From there, it’s a quick slide into smuggling drugs from above the Canadian border. Meanwhile, Steph goes to college and becomes the town’s manager and unofficial mayor, ironically dubbing it “Maine’s Safe Haven.” Their son, EJ, becomes a cop, mainly so he can protect his family’s criminal enterprises. It looks like Allie might just make a step up socially and out of Damariscotta altogether after she gets a lacrosse scholarship. But then that party happens. White handles suspense and a complex plot well, but the characters don’t quite come into focus—it’s never clear why Ed and Steph find each other so compelling, and Allie, who serves as a motivation for many of her family’s actions, is a blank herself until very late in the book.
A small-town riff on The Great Gatsby suffers from underdeveloped characters.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-24315-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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