A funny and thoughtful portrayal of the not-too-distant future.
A town’s residents battle over the last piece of valuable property in this novel.
In 2027, Emily Cooper feels drawn to Breckenridge, Colorado—beckoned there by elliptical dreams. She finds old letters written by her grandfather, Isaiah Copper, claiming that he hid a valuable nugget of gold in a chapel that he built in the town years ago. After attending art school in Rhode Island—she makes Japanese pottery—she moved to New York City, but she couldn’t get accustomed to metropolitan life. Now she dreams of buying the chapel and using it as an art studio. However, she discovers that the land upon which the chapel is built is worth millions, and nearly everyone in Breckenridge seems to have an eye on it. William Janis, the chapel’s rector, wants to build a high-tech, modern church facility, and Mayor Ladd teams up with a shady real estate developer looking to build a ski resort. Prescott “Hucker” Anderson, the owner of a high-priced home for the elderly, aims to use the property to open a hospice, hoping that a permissive euthanasia law will allow more rapid turnover of aging clients. However, Al Holland, who owns the property, is indifferent to wealth; he’s more interested in the health of the community. He immediately takes a shine to Emily, who moves into the chapel—making her a target. Author Champorcher (The Vatican Strategy, 2014, etc.) delivers a lighthearted but action-packed thriller. He has a particular talent for seamlessly combining comical high jinks with violent drama: sometimes Emily’s life is threatened, and at other times, she’s making wisecracks to her new sidekick, Stephen “Bear” Chen, a once-successful musician who now refuses to play in front of large groups. Also, with its futuristic tale, the novel inventively captures a world that’s dominated by a sizable elderly population—the direct result of advances in medical science. However, the plot eventually becomes taxingly complicated, and a subplot involving Buddhist monks and reincarnation is simply gratuitous.
A funny and thoughtful portrayal of the not-too-distant future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-974611-58-4
Page Count: 266
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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