The British author of the widely acclaimed historical romance Louisa Elliott (1989) now turns her considerable talents to writing the story of Louisa's children—beginning in the present when Zoe Clifford, Louisa's great-great granddaughter, travels to York in search of her family's history. There, Zoe meets a distant cousin, Stephen Elliott, who shares with her a long-unopened trunk filled with letters, photographs, and a captivating diary written by one of Louisa's sons, Liam. From there, the novel slips back in time to the year 1913, and the long- dead family members are brought vividly and convincingly to life. Young Liam develops a boyish infatuation with Georgina Duncannon, whom he believes to be a distant cousin, but an overheard conversation reveals that Georgina is actually his half-sister. Horrified, Liam confronts his mother and then abruptly leaves home, striking out for the wilds of Australia. When WW I breaks out, he enlists, and when he becomes violently ill with dysentery, he is sent to London to recuperate. Georgina, a nurse, finds him there, and the two are drawn into an incestuous affair. Slowly, Zoe and Stephen piece together the clues and make the discovery for themselves. And in the process, they discover some unusual parallels—Zoe lives in a flat where Georgina once lived, Stephen physically resembles Liam—between past and present. They also fall deeply in love, but trouble arises when Stephen, a ship's captain, is sent to the Persian Gulf. Distance and several misunderstandings make them doubt their feelings for each another. It takes a near- tragedy to shock them into a recognition of how much they do in fact care. Well-researched and deftly written: a thoroughly satisfying historical romance that manages to bridge the decades with grace and skill.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-11074-6
Page Count: 620
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.
His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.
This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.
Pub Date: April 7, 1952
ISBN: 0679732764
Page Count: 616
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1952
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
APPRECIATIONS
Connelly takes a break from his Harry Bosch police novels (The Last Coyote, p. 328, etc.) for something even more intense: a reporter's single-minded pursuit of the serial killer who murdered his twin. Even his buddies in the Denver PD thought Sean McEvoy's shooting in the backseat of his car looked like a classic cop suicide, right clown to the motive: his despondency over his failure to clear the murder of a University of Denver student. But as Sean's twin brother, Jack, of the Rocky Mountain News, notices tiny clues that marked Sean's death as murder, his suspicions about the dying message Sean scrawled inside his fogged windshield—"Out of space. Out of time"—alert him to a series of eerily similar killings stretching from Sarasota to Albuquerque. The pattern, Jack realizes, involves two sets of murders: a series of sex killings of children, and then the executions (duly camouflaged as suicides) of the investigating police officers. Armed with what he's dug up, Jack heads off to Washington, to the Law Enforcement Foundation and the FBI. The real fireworks begin as Jack trades his official silence for an inside role in the investigation, only to find himself shut out of both the case and the story. From then on in, Jack, falling hard for Rachel Walling, the FBI agent in charge of the case, rides his Bureau connections like a bucking bronco—even as one William Gladden, a pedophile picked up on a low-level charge in Santa Monica, schemes to make bail before the police can run his prints through the national computer, then waits with sick patience for his chance at his next victim. The long-awaited confrontation between Jack and Gladden comes at an LA video store; but even afterward, Jack's left with devastating questions about the case. Connelly wrings suspense out of every possible aspect of Jack's obsessive hunt for his brother's killer. Prepare to be played like a violin.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-316-15398-2
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
