Interesting but befuddled.
A transplanted Kansas teen tries to make sense of a brutal murder in Brashear’s debut.
Sixteen-year-old Carly narrates the story of a murder that gripped the small Kansas town of Holcomb in 1959, when Herb and Bonnie Clutter, along with their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, were killed without obvious motive. Truman Capote would immortalize the subsequent manhunt and trial in his masterpiece In Cold Blood. Brashear chooses to tell the story from the perspective of a presumably fictional white girl who wanted to be—but wasn’t quite—Nancy’s friend. Ex–New Yorker Carly searches for evidence, going so far as to hold a séance at the scene of the crime; she’s interrogated by police and, like everyone else in the town, interviewed by Capote. Kansan Brashear writes smoothly, but her novel is problematic on several fronts. Carly never emerges with a clear motive for her snooping, uncovering nothing of value, and her personal narrative arc seems slight. Worse, modern teens aren’t likely to understand that this is a retelling of a nearly 60-year-old crime story. Without background, Capote and his female friend, Nelle Lee (later author of To Kill a Mockingbird), seem like odd distractions from the main narrative. There’s no author’s note to separate fact from fiction or to inform readers what happened after the trial, and without context the story doesn’t really hold up on its own.
Interesting but befuddled. (map) (Historical fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61695-683-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
In this third novel in her trilogy, Longshore skillfully blends history with romance, weaving a compelling, poignant story...
In a companion to Gilt (2012) and Tarnish (2013), Longshore chooses as her heroine a member of Henry VIII’s household less well-known than Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn, the respective subjects of her earlier novels.
Mary Howard FitzRoy’s story provides a fresh perspective for a retelling of the cruel and tragic drama of the Tudor court. The child bride of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, young Mary has the misfortune to fall in love with her 14-year-old husband. Although marriage to the royal heir makes her a duchess and thus higher in rank than her haughty mother, her life as a royal wife is mostly frightening and lonely. The young spouses are forbidden to consummate their marriage for fear of injury to the male heir. Fitz is often away on court business, while Mary is alienated from her female companions and left to wait on the doomed Anne Boleyn. Mary’s unsatisfying romance with her young husband plays out against a backdrop of court intrigue, power struggles, and the sequential rises and demises of Henry’s wives. The couple plot to run away together, but they are held by the invisible ties of the powerful men who determine their destiny and those of the people around them.
In this third novel in her trilogy, Longshore skillfully blends history with romance, weaving a compelling, poignant story of love, loss and betrayal. (family tree, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-01401-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
The disappointingly predictable plot and characters fail to deliver on the novel’s promising opening scene
Believing that the wealthy Gregory family is involved in their friend Willa’s death, a group of one-dimensional teen socialites engage in bumbling efforts to achieve vigilante justice.
Operating under the assumption that James Gregory drowned Willa, while his twin brother and grandfather used the family money and influence to orchestrate a coverup, Willa’s friends form a “revenge club” whose $25,000 dues payments will be used to expose the family’s depravities, thereby destroying its fortune and social status. The girls’ easy access to thousands of dollars in cash is only the first of many improbable plot devices. An overreliance upon convenience—and the inexplicable—eliminates opportunities for the clever moments of detective work that typically punctuate classic whodunits. While the book does explore important questions about money, power and privilege, the stereotypical characters offer few fresh perspectives and do little to distract readers from the spottiness of the revenge drama. (Country-club staff members are variously described as having “café au lait” and “coconut-colored” skin, maids have heavy Russian accents, and the rebellious member of the revenge club is marked by her “white trash” tattoos.) Readers interested in a protagonist’s explorations of her town’s chilling undercurrent of corruption and violence will find Lauren Myracle’s Shine (2011) more rewarding.
The disappointingly predictable plot and characters fail to deliver on the novel’s promising opening scene . (Mystery. 14-17)Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61695-261-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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