An engrossing tale about British expatriates in India during a tumultuous political time, well-suited for fans of Indian...
In this debut historical novel, a British woman living in India with her family in the 1850s struggles to find love.
George opens her tale as Edwina Hardingham is visiting her sister, Katherine, in Calcutta. Edwina has traveled from Simla, an area in the hills where she lives with her parents, to be present for the birth of her sister’s child. When Edwina makes a brief visit to the home of Indian friends in Calcutta, she and her servant are attacked by a band of thieves. Edwina fears for her life, but a lone man appears to thwart the assault. After chasing off the bandits, the man introduces himself as William Grayson and escorts Edwina back to Katherine’s. Before long, Edwina must return home. She finds herself infatuated with Grayson, and is delighted when he appears in Simla. As they grow better acquainted, Grayson quickly disappoints Edwina, displaying a fickle nature that extinguishes her affection for him. But his shortcomings highlight the positive attributes of another man she has just met in Simla, James Henry Davenport. Unfortunately, Davenport believes Edwina has eyes only for Grayson. Worse yet, before she can reveal her feelings for Davenport, he is whisked away to fight against the Indian insurrection that has begun sweeping through the country. With a sudden shift in tone, the book pauses its focus on courtship and becomes an action-packed war chronicle, deftly detailing Davenport’s attempts to battle the Indian rebels and locate his sister, whom he believes to be at risk in light of the general political unrest in India. Although the book contains two vastly different sections, perhaps attempting to accomplish too much in one volume, both stories are absorbing, and the author ultimately weaves everything together in the end. This well-researched tale illustrates the cultural and political divide that pervaded India in the mid-19th century. In a narrative voice that conjures both Jane Austen and Erich Maria Remarque, George provides intriguing and thorough details about the Indian revolt against British rule in the 1850s.
An engrossing tale about British expatriates in India during a tumultuous political time, well-suited for fans of Indian history and Victorian literature.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73226-981-1
Page Count: 307
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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