One of the strongest entries yet in this deservedly popular historical series.
Youngest sibling Fleurette takes up sleuthing on her own in the seventh Kopp Sisters adventure.
It opens on a grim note: The sudden death of their brother, Francis, in January 1919 has left the sisters responsible for his pregnant widow, his two older children, and a mountain of debt they had no inkling of. Each of them makes painful sacrifices: Constance gives up her dream job with the FBI in Washington; Norma abandons her plan to live a freer life in Europe; and a bout with scarlet fever has damaged Fleurette’s voice and her nascent stage career. She’s delighted when a lawyer offers her a well-paying gig as a “professional co-respondent,” helping couples who need to prove adultery to get divorced by posing for compromising photos with the husbands. Although nothing even close to adultery occurs, Fleurette knows her sisters would disapprove, and indeed Constance explodes when she finds out. But Fleurette is sick of being told what to do by Constance and storms off; her ignorance of the fact (which readers of previous novels already know) that she is actually Constance’s illegitimate daughter makes their conflict in this volume particularly wrenching. However, the mysterious behavior of one of the lawyer’s clients gets Fleurette involved in what proves to be a confidence scam targeting vulnerable women, and her attempts to bring the wrongdoer to justice land her in jail. Her sisters come to the rescue, each making her individual, forceful contribution to the satisfying resolution of multiple mysteries: Norma’s overbearing nature is instrumental in unravelling Francis’ catastrophic finances; Constance enlists her law enforcement know-how to smooth over Fleurette’s legal troubles. (As usual, Stewart explains in endnotes what in this fact-based story actually happened and what she invented.) It’s a pleasure to watch Fleurette, rather tiresomely vain and self-centered in earlier novels, mature into a strong, independent woman very much in the Kopp mold. As always, Stewart leaves us with the welcome promise of more Kopp sisters adventures to come.
One of the strongest entries yet in this deservedly popular historical series.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-09311-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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