Great characters and wild turns of events make this book a knockout.
A lady boxer, a poxy lady and a louche pretty boy tangle in 18th-century England.
"I'd like to say that my beginnings were humble, but they weren't beginnings, because I never really left them but for a short while." This is Ruth, and the birthplace and lifelong home she's referring to is a Bristol whorehouse known as "the convent." When her older half sister, Dora, is drafted at "12 or 13" into the ranks of their mother's "misses," plain-faced Ruth feels left out and jealous, not least of the big, fat piece of bacon Dora now rates at the breakfast table. The tension erupts into a catfight, which the gentleman patrons witness with such enthusiasm that it's moved to the yard outside and bets are placed. One of the onlookers is a fellow named Dryer; he becomes the patron of both girls, Dora at the brothel and Ruth in the boxing ring. (In the Author’s Note of her debut novel, Freeman writes that lady pugilists were just one of many rough entertainments common in the nasty, smelly 1700s, so brilliantly evoked here.) Through Dryer, Ruth will eventually meet the two other main characters of the story, both of whom take turns with her in telling it. One is Charlotte Sinclair, an upper-class young woman who was terribly marked by childhood smallpox; she ends up married to the awful Dryer. The other is George Bowden, a schoolmate of both Dryer and Charlotte's brother Perry; George's good looks far surpass his moral character. Gamblers, drinkers, fighters, hookers; the fancy, the rowdy, the rude—Freeman does a wonderful job of spinning this furious yarn, in which the fury of women plays the lead role.
Great characters and wild turns of events make this book a knockout.Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59463-329-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.
When Chi Chi Donatelli gave famous crooner Saverio Armandonada a manicure on a 1930s New Jersey beach, little did she know that the swanky singer would change her life.
After his childhood sweetheart married another man, Saverio left the security of his job on the factory line in Detroit, earning his father’s disapproval but opening wide the door to success as a big-band singer. Along his way to stardom, Saverio changed his name to Tony Arma and discovered a talent for romancing—but never marrying—the ladies. But once he meets Chi Chi, his bachelor days are numbered. From a large, boisterous Italian family, Chi Chi is eager to have a life like Tony’s, with the freedom to sing and travel the country. She wants no part of marriage with its shackles. Soon Chi Chi and Tony are touring together, eventually developing a profitable shtick, with Chi Chi writing bestselling songs and Tony serenading them to dreamy audiences. It’s only a matter of time before Tony proposes. After all, unlike his other girls, Chi Chi offers Tony not only beauty and charm, but also the stability of a home. The lovers’ work in the entertainment industry gives way to a marriage blessed with babies yet held apart by war. Once reunited, Chi Chi’s independence and Tony’s philandering further fracture their marriage. But as Tony’s path wends from woman to woman, Chi Chi forges a new life on her own terms. A mistress of the sweeping family saga, bestselling author Trigiani (Kiss Carlo, 2017, etc.) sets Chi Chi and Tony’s lifelong love affair against the grand stage of World War II through the postwar boom years and the women’s liberation movement, tracing a society catching up with Chi Chi’s determination to control her own financial and personal freedom.
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-231925-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Melodramatic for sure, but the author manages to avoid stereotypes while maintaining a brisk pace.
Irish orphan finds a new family among slaves in Grissom’s pulse-quickening debut.
Lavinia is only six in 1791, when her parents die aboard ship and the captain, James Pyke, brings her to work as an indentured servant at Tall Oaks, his Virginia plantation. Pyke’s illegitimate daughter Belle, chief cook (and alternate narrator with Lavinia), takes reluctant charge of the little white girl. Belle and the other house slaves, including Mama Mae and Papa George, their son Ben, grizzled Uncle Jacob and youngsters Beattie and Fanny, soon embrace Lavinia as their own. Otherwise, life at Tall Oaks is grim. Pyke’s wife Martha sinks deeper into laudanum addiction during the captain’s long absences. Brutal, drunken overseer Rankin starves and beats the field slaves. The Pykes’ 11-year-old son Marshall “accidentally” causes his young sister Sally’s death, and Ben is horribly mutilated by Rankin. When Martha, distraught over Sally, ignores her infant son Campbell, Lavinia bonds with the baby, as well as with Sukey, daughter of Campbell’s black wet nurse Dory. Captain Pyke’s trip to Philadelphia to find a husband for Belle proves disastrous; Dory and Campbell die of yellow fever, and Pyke contracts a chronic infection that will eventually kill him. Marshall is sent to boarding school, but returns from time to time to wreak havoc, which includes raping Belle, whom he doesn’t know is his half-sister. After the captain dies, through a convoluted convergence of events, Lavinia marries Marshall and at 17 becomes the mistress of Tall Oaks. At first her savior, Marshall is soon Lavinia’s jailer. Kindly neighboring farmer Will rescues several Tall Oaks slaves, among them Ben and Belle, who, unbeknownst to all, was emancipated by the captain years ago. As Rankin and Marshall outdo each other in infamy, the stage is set for a breathless but excruciatingly attenuated denouement.
Melodramatic for sure, but the author manages to avoid stereotypes while maintaining a brisk pace.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-5366-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2009
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