Vivid period details, but an unconvincing plot and cardboard people.
A creaky first novel about a young woman strong enough to ignore convention in a 1920s town and to live and marry as she pleases.
Lily Willard is gratifyingly indifferent to the usual expectations of young women—she can’t cook or sew—but she’s not well served by Corrieveau’s storyline. A mixture of the mundane (building houses and dusting library shelves) and the mysterious (from time to time Lilly has visions or sees omens), it begins in May 1907. Lily is eight and lives on the family farm in Vermont, and she’s had two signs before breakfast that she can’t ignore: a usually fecund barn cat has produced only two kittens, and two swarms of insects are competing for space in a tree. Soon afterward she sees a strange wagon near her house and meets Abel Pritchard, the housewright (he builds houses from designs in books) who is there to put up the family’s new home. With him are his identical twin boys, Oren and Ian, the same age as Lily. Despite their impressive knowledge of carpentry, the twins, who will years later change Lily’s life, are more concepts than credible figures. As Lily teaches them to read, as well as to ride horses, the three become a close-knit trio. But when the house is finished, the boys leave and Lily forgets them—until one day in 1917. While Lily is working as a librarian, Oren Pritchard comes back to claim her as his bride. After they marry, Ian, shell-shocked while fighting in France, moves in with them. The three get along just fine until one evening when they drink too much at a local dance and start waltzing together—which causes a scandal. Lily’s solution—the marriage of Ian to local divorcée Hallie—causes only more trouble and tragedy, destroying the brothers’ closeness. But Lily is strong and knows how to fight for what matters, whatever it might cost.
Vivid period details, but an unconvincing plot and cardboard people.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-14-200209-7
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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