An engaging, disturbing tale of love, loss, and human frailties set against cross-cultural conflicts.
In this novel, a young American woman joins the Foreign Service and is sent to Cambodia during Southeast Asia’s turbulent 1960s.
Julia Galbraith, nearly 23, arrives in Phnom Penh in the Mango Rain season (pre-monsoon period) of 1963. It is her first overseas posting. Prince Sihanouk is still in power, playing a delicate balancing act between friendships with America and China, which are involved in the early stages of their battle in war-torn Vietnam. In Cambodia, the Khmer Serei, an anti-Sihanouk rebel group hiding in Thailand, is becoming more threatening. The political machinations in Southeast Asia during this time create an intriguing and increasingly dark backdrop. During Julia’s tenure, a military coup ousts the United States–supported Diem government in Vietnam; President John F. Kennedy is assassinated; and the American position in Cambodia becomes tenuous. But the real drama in the novel rests with the romantic liaisons, ambitions, tragedies, and disappointments of various members of the diplomatic corps and the journalists covering them, beginning with Julia, through whom readers meet the rest of the characters. Her ill-fated love affair with the handsome Charles Hourani, who is attached to the Moroccan Embassy, is just one of the narrative’s challenging relationships that change lives and often end sadly as the story eventually progresses through succeeding decades. Oman, who has some experience in the Foreign Service, offers a captivating insider glimpse of America’s diplomatic mission during a tumultuous time. Vivid images of Cambodia—the colors, aromas, flavors, and street scenes—bring readers directly into the time and place: “Fortunetellers squat on the pavement, and old men hold cages of songbirds. Dentists set up rudimentary shops on the sidewalks, their primitive tools laid out on less-than-pristine towels.” The second half of the richly descriptive and poignant book—with the exception of its first chapter, which concludes Julia’s time in Southeast Asia—consists of an assortment of catch-up vignettes that fill in the ultimate fates of most of the supporting characters. It makes for a rather melancholy finale.
An engaging, disturbing tale of love, loss, and human frailties set against cross-cultural conflicts.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73323-322-4
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Galaxy Galloper Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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