A wide-ranging yet monochrome collection of rhyming poems.
A debut volume of poetry celebrates life in America.
Many a poet has been inspired to write by the beauty of the American West. Tidwell stands proudly among them: “When you experience the grandeur of the Rockies / You will find a peace nothing else can achieve / The valleys and snowcapped peaks paint a picture / That will continually make your memories richer.” The first section of this collection features many praises of Western landscapes as well as selections like “The Lawman” and “The Sheriff” that effectively evoke the long tradition of cowboy poetry. But the author’s verse touches on many topics: Subsequent sections include poems on travel, friendship, loss, and the many emotions related to love. There is an entire section dedicated to Tidwell’s patriotic feelings, with poems about 9/11, military service, and the country’s growing partisan divide. He finds inspiration in quotidian tasks as well, as in this vivid, unexpectedly melancholic poem about doing laundry post-divorce: “Finding out she wasn’t happy meant ending this show / That’s how I ended up in the town of Durango / Doing laundry just once a week is now something, I hate / 10 sets of socks, shorts and t shirts is such an ugly state.” There is an antiquated quality to the work, both in terms of form and content. (The first poem, a romantic ode to the Native Americans of the West, is called “Red Brothers.”) The poems are almost all composed of quatrains featuring AABB end rhymes. But Tidwell is not a counter of syllables and his meter tends to be all over the place, as in “Cousin Peggy”: “The mother of four, business owner and much more / Teaching her kids to seek the truth and evil to abhor / A mom with little people she had to nurture and feed / And with Heavenly help she met all their daily needs.” The poems appear only on the odd-numbered pages of this nearly 240-page volume. The even-numbered pages are either blank or feature stock images related to the topics of the poems. This ambitious collection will likely be of interest to the author’s loved ones and friends. But the work is a bit too uneven to be of interest to a larger poetry audience.
A wide-ranging yet monochrome collection of rhyming poems.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72833-475-2
Page Count: 246
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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