by Ann Whelan Devaux ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 15, 2018
An often gripping, if unevenly executed, portrait of a woman caught in a destructive marriage.
A whirlwind relationship turns into a nightmare for a young Irish artist in Devaux’s debut novel.
Ráichéal, an artist living in Dublin, is a firm believer that “everything happens for a reason and not by accident, chance or design.” So when she sees a newspaper advertisement from a man named Daniel San Laurant seeking a pen pal, she feels compelled to respond to him. Ráichéal is looking for adventure and Daniel’s letters make her eager to learn more about him. So she travels to his home on the island of San Sebastian in the West Indies, where she’s seduced by his charm and his glamourous lifestyle. They eventually marry and live in luxury on his family’s estate; however, tensions lurk beneath the surface as Ráichéal starts to notice that everything she does revolves around Daniel and his needs. His controlling behavior (“what Daniel wanted to do, is what Daniel always did, regardless of anyone else”) continues after they adopt a son, Antonio. Ráichéal briefly leaves Daniel, but they soon reconcile. But after they go on to adopt three daughters—Ella, Grace, and Amelia—it becomes clear that Daniel will stop at nothing to control Ráichéal, and she finds herself in a battle to save her family. Devaux offers a suspenseful, affecting thriller. Ráichéal is a dynamic protagonist whose transformation from a naive bride to a protective mother fighting for her independence is dramatically effective. The supporting characters are equally well-developed, including Margaux, Daniel’s calculating, narcissistic mother. The sprawling narrative includes detailed descriptions of Ráichéal’s travels throughout the world, including extended visits to Mexico, Panama, and Ireland. Still, the novel would have benefited from a sharper copy edit; for example, billionaire Howard Hughes is referred to as “Howard Hues,” and the British television show Fawlty Towers is called “Faulty Towers.”
An often gripping, if unevenly executed, portrait of a woman caught in a destructive marriage.Pub Date: July 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-9214-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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