A convincing window into a particularly vibrant period of Scottish history.
In this debut novel set in 18th-century Scotland, a group of physicians gets caught up in disease, murder, and political intrigue.
As smallpox sweeps through Edinburgh, headstrong physician Malcolm Forrester is determined to run a study to test one of his hypotheses: that inoculating people with smallpox scabs will make them immune to the illness. Some physicians gather with him to use themselves as test subjects, but they face violent opposition from Sir Robert Turnbull, the change-fearing head of the College of Physicians; radical clerics; and the captain of the guard, Donald Mackmain, who believes the doctors are meddling with God’s will. Meanwhile, a “healer” named Elspeth MacLeod arrives in the Scottish village of Torrport to take on some of Malcolm’s patients, and quickly gets entangled in local intrigue. A woman named Lady Julianne, a relation of the leader Laird MacDuff, arrives at Elspeth’s door one rainy night and gives birth to a premature baby. After examining the woman, who survives, Elspeth suspects Julianne was poisoned. Then the laird’s second-in-command, Capt. John Spence, is found face down in a laundry tub, dead, with a bar of soap in his mouth. When Malcolm and Elspeth attempt to investigate who would want Julianne and Spence dead and why, they uncover surprising hidden ties between certain residents of the town and the Russian czar. Marsolais and Twigg pack their novel with an impressive amount of research on a very specific place and time (the spring of 1705) and its clothing, weaponry, and transportation. They also include a wealth of details about practicing medicine in that period: everything from the accepted way to treat a fistula to the era’s surgical instruments. While some of the political context has the ring of a textbook and Malcolm’s speech is riddled with comma splices (“Can’t blame him, he’s a wife and family, the rest of us are young with no dependents, expendable”), the tale is filled with lively sword fights, Scottish brogues, and colorful characters. Elspeth is especially memorable: she’s gutsy and competent, chafing against a bygone century’s restrictions on female physicians.
A convincing window into a particularly vibrant period of Scottish history.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77510-612-8
Page Count: 642
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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