NOW YOU SEE IT

Name: NOW YOU SEE IT
Author: Allison Lynn
ISBN: 0-7432-5026-5

by Allison Lynn ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2004

Lynn’s gripping and feverish tale builds momentum page by page—right up to a surprise climax that confounds all expectations...

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Haunting debut about a husband’s attempt to unravel the mystery of his wife’s disappearance.

Well-educated and sophisticated, David and Jessica both come from upper-middle class backgrounds and, after a period of youthful rebellion in their adolescent and college years, have drifted back into a privileged Manhattan milieu of clubs and charity benefits. David is an investigative reporter at a glossy travel magazine; Jessica teaches at an exclusive private school uptown. Although their marriage has had its share of grief (especially in their long and futile attempt to have a child), it seems solid and capable of weathering the storms of age. But one day David is shocked to come home from a business trip and find Jessica gone without a trace. A spur-of-the-moment trip? Hardly—Jessica had classes that Monday morning and has never missed a day of school. Another man? Just as unlikely—her keys and wallet are still in the apartment. The NYPD detective glumly tells David that missing persons who aren’t found within 72 hours are usually never found at all, but David becomes more convinced with each passing day that Jessica is alive. Why? Even Jessica’s mother gives up hope after a few months and holds a memorial service for her (which David refuses to attend). Perhaps David’s faith has some link to the case of Derek Jhensen: An American businessman who disappeared in Peru in 1992, Jhensen is still rumored to be alive, and David made his own name as a reporter by tracking Jhensen through the wilds of South America. Now David is getting new sightings of Jhensen once more. Is this a sign that Jessica may be out there somewhere also? Or is David just unraveling altogether?

Lynn’s gripping and feverish tale builds momentum page by page—right up to a surprise climax that confounds all expectations but seems obvious once it arrives.

Pub Date: July 13, 2004

ISBN: 0-7432-5026-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.