Page-turning inspirational fiction for the casual reader.
An inspirational writer must put her teachings to work when her husband leaves, ruining the wonderful life she has built.
Angela Hearly-Peterson had it all–a beautiful, adoring husband, a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, even a Pulitzer Prize for her bestselling inspirational memoir Wrestling With the Demons. Little does Angela know it’s all about to come crumbling down. Her husband Jackson–the beloved “moon to her sea”–has a secret gambling problem and has lost their entire fortune. In debt to Las Vegas casinos, he commits an almost unspeakable act that will send Angela’s life into a downward spiral. She flees the West Coast for her family compound on Nantucket, where she plans to end the miserable charade that her life has become. The island remains home to people who still love Angela and remember the little girl she used to be before fame and fortune struck. One man in particular has been waiting for her return. Leo, her unrequited high school boyfriend, still holds a torch for Angela and believes that they will end up together. Slowly, the motley group of islanders bands together to coax Angela back from the edge. Riveting until the end (a delightful bit of postmodernism closes the book), Courage of Fear is a suspenseful, exciting story. Boyer employs an interesting time-jump structure which contrasts Jackson and Angela’s blissful courtship with the morass of sorrow that has become their marriage. The novel is full of indelible characters who will hook enthusiastic readers. Boyer is adept at writing details that bring characters to life, i.e. manicured but chewed-down fingernails, a careful avoidance of a spot on the floor where passionate lovemaking had once occurred during happier days, etc. The book only fails at one point–the author’s stated intention to pass on advice and inspiration to readers, much in the same way the book’s protagonist helped hers. Most readers will be more absorbed by the narrative than the advice dispensed therein. However, the book remains enjoyable on many levels.
Page-turning inspirational fiction for the casual reader.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-6152-0363-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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