On the eve of the American Revolution, as war approaches, Sarah Revere's father, Paul, is often away from home as he rides from town to town warning the militias about British troop movements and deployment in the region. Close family friend Dr. Joseph Warren watches over the large Revere household, but Sarah suspects that his interest in her attractive stepmother, Rachel, is more than friendly. She confronts him, but Dr. Warren is so hurt and angered by Sarah's suspicions that a rift is created. When the doctor goes into battle Sarah realizes that she may have misjudged him and cries out for forgiveness, never certain that he granted it. After determining that her actions were just a cover for her own unseemly feelings for him, Sarah is devastated by what she has done, and even more devastated by news of the doctor's death in battle. As usual, Rinaldi (Finishing Becca, 1994, etc.) has done her homework; the book is solidly researched and extremely well written. Readers will not soon forget these characters, whose actions and passions illuminate and enliven a historical era about which they may have heard much, but understood little. Vivid in the best sense of the word. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-15-200393-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of...
1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new trilogy from Printz winner Bray.
Irrepressible 17-year-old Evie delights in her banishment to her Uncle Will’s care in Manhattan after she drunkenly embarrasses a peer in her Ohio hometown. She envisions glamour, fun and flappers, but she gets a great deal more in the bargain. Her uncle, the curator of a museum of the occult, is soon tapped to help solve a string of grisly murders, and Evie, who has long concealed an ability to read people’s pasts while holding an object of their possession, is eager to assist. An impressively wide net is cast here, sprawling to include philosophical Uncle Will and his odd assistant, a numbers runner and poet who dreams of establishing himself among the stars of the Harlem Renaissance, a beautiful and mysterious dancer on the run from her past and her kind musician roommate, a slick-talking pickpocket, and Evie’s seemingly demure sidekick, Mabel. Added into the rotation of third-person narrators are the voices of those encountering a vicious, otherworldly serial killer; these are utterly terrifying.
Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don’t let go. Not to be missed. (Historical/paranormal thriller. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-12611-3
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
An unflinching, superbly written story about family, friendship, and integrity, set during one of America’s deadliest race...
The discovery of a skeleton connects the lives of two teens, a century apart, with the brutality and terror of the 1921 Tulsa race riots.
After 17-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton in an outbuilding on her family’s property in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she sets out to investigate. Almost 100 years earlier, in Jim Crow–era Tulsa, 17-year-old Will Tillman finds himself at the center of violence and lawlessness on the night whites looted and burned Greenwood, a thriving African-American community within the city. In all, 35 blocks and nearly 1,300 homes and businesses were destroyed; 8,000 black Tulsans lost everything they owned; and at least 300 people died. Will is white and Osage. Like Will, Rowan is biracial (African-American and white). She comes from a wealthy family and must face her own class privilege as well as uncomfortable parallels between the century-old murder mystery she’s trying to solve and present-day race relations in her community and the nation as a whole. Alternating narration chapter by chapter between Rowan and Will, Latham presents a fast-paced historical novel brimming with unsparing detail and unshakable truths about a shameful chapter in American history. For more than 50 years, Tulsa’s schoolchildren didn’t learn about the race riot, and many outside of Tulsa remain unaware today. This masterfully told story fills this void.
An unflinching, superbly written story about family, friendship, and integrity, set during one of America’s deadliest race riots. (author’s note) (Mystery/historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-38493-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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