A nostalgic romance, rich with Portuguese culture and a few surprising twists at the end.
A retrospective novel about a wounded Vietnam veteran and the complicated woman who helps him cope with his disfigurement.
Debut novelist Sharry presents his tale through three distinct storylines. The book begins in the 1950s as a young Portuguese girl is being forced by her parents to immigrate to the U.S. and marry Inacio Raposo, a boy of their choosing. Sharry then switches gears and introduces the reader to the Ahearn family in Massachusetts during the early 1970s. After losing his brother to Vietnam, Peter Ahearn returns home wounded and emotionally wrecked. Peter’s fiancee abandons him, unable to cope with his missing arm and blinded eye. Peter retreats into himself, moving to an isolated lighthouse where he works as light keeper with the primary goal of avoiding others. Just as the reader is immersed in Peter’s story, the novel jumps 35 years into the future to follow Peter’s nephew, Mark Valente. The reader learns that Peter disappeared many years ago; he has recently reappeared with dementia, unable to explain his whereabouts for the prior three decades. To unravel the mystery of his uncle’s life, Mark relies primarily on a journal that Peter left behind. As Mark sifts through the journal, the threads of the story finally begin to weave together. Mark learns that the Raposo family lived near the lighthouse, along with their attractive young daughter. As he tries to piece together what happened between the Raposos’ daughter and his uncle that might explain the disappearance, Mark too becomes enchanted with the young Ms. Raposo. Moving at a fast clip, the book at first presents like a light beach read, but the narrative explores many weighty issues—alcoholism, depression, physical abuse, adultery—which Sharry covers with insight and finesse. Although the book takes its sweet time in reaching its stride, the tale becomes quite gripping as the details of past mysteries unfold.
A nostalgic romance, rich with Portuguese culture and a few surprising twists at the end.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615956817
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Coccinelle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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