An enjoyably readable love story.
A tender, romantic novel about two wounded souls who find each other and ponder the risk of trying to love again.
India Evans is a reporter and anchorwoman for NBC’s Today show, filmed in New York City. She’s set to marry Jack Sterling, a dashing meteorologist at a rival network, and the highly publicized celebrity union is sure to advance her career. But India is plagued by doubt, and when she realizes that she doesn’t truly love Jack, she cancels the wedding. Her ratings plunge and her superiors strongly suggest that she take a hiatus from work. India plans a respite at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee—a gorgeous, bucolic resort that’s a short drive from Knoxville. There, she meets Wyatt Hinch, a freelance photographer, and she’s immediately drawn to him, finding his combination of rugged good looks and easy kindness irresistible. But he has his own reasons to be wary of love: he lost both his parents in a car crash when he was 15 and later lost his wife to illness. To further complicate matters, he and India unexpectedly encounter Jack at a special dinner hosted by a celebrity chef—Jack’s new girlfriend. During the event, Jack plants seeds of doubt in Wyatt’s mind about his new relationship. As Wyatt and India’s affair becomes more serious, they must make hard decisions about the courses of their lives. In her debut novel, author Thome writes with a winning charm and peppers her prose with a quirky wit: “Wyatt cranked up the music on his iPod….Eminem informed him that he only had one shot, and that this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.” Along the way, she realistically depicts the pain of profound loss, and the fear of vulnerability that such trauma can conjure. The plot itself doesn’t break any new ground, as it’s essentially a variation on well-worn themes, but Thome develops it with a companionable mix of sweetness and drama.
An enjoyably readable love story.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9978504-0-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Hesse Creek Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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