by Ann Hymes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2016
A captivating and uplifting tale best suited for fans of meaningful beach-town romances.
A young wife retreats to a secluded family home to reevaluate her marriage.
In her debut novel, Hymes presents a conflicted young woman who is beginning to question her humdrum existence. As the book opens, Theresa Alston Crandall inherits her grandmother’s house on Cape Cod. Theresa decides to drive from Virginia to Massachusetts, without her husband, to see what she can learn about her deceased grandmother she hadn’t seen in many years and the mother who died when she was only a small child. Theresa’s father took her away from the Cape a few years after her mother’s death, claiming it was too painful for him to remain at the site of all his memories. He raised Theresa on his own, refusing to divulge details to his daughter about the life they left behind. Now, her father has recently died. With her grandmother also dead, Theresa feels very much alone, and utterly disconnected from her husband. As soon as she steps foot in her grandmother’s home, she can intuit that the dwelling is rife with history and meaning. She immediately feels a sense of belonging just looking through the many unusual and cluttered rooms. Shortly after arriving on the Cape, she begins meeting locals, including certain men who make her feel alive and desirable for the first time in ages. She explores relationships with a couple of these guys as she simultaneously dives deeper into the shocking secrets replete in her family’s past. Throughout this breezy, sun-soaked novel, the author touches on weightier issues than the reader might expect (at one point, Theresa tells a prospective lover: “I believe that heaven is a mental concept that we can experience here and now, and our home should definitely be tied to it”). From grief and loss to forgiveness and redemption, Hymes does not hold back. The author steers clear of predictable outcomes in this unexpected story, providing ample romantic suspense and witty prose to keep the reader turning pages. Chock-full of rich descriptions of the New England coast, as well as surprising scandals and an adorable dog named Gypsy, the book should satisfy even seasoned beach readers.
A captivating and uplifting tale best suited for fans of meaningful beach-town romances.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944962-15-9
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Secant Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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