by Barbara Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 6, 2016
While Davis crafts compelling characters, her overreliance on secrets and plot gimmicks muddies the narrative.
Grief remains the strongest bond in Davis’ (Summer at Hideaway Key, 2015, etc.) new novel.
A year after her fiance’s unexpected suicide, Dovie Larkin is still desperate for answers. Ignoring the concern of friends and family, Dovie is a frequent visitor at the cemetery, often bringing her lunch there. During one of these visits, she's struck by the sight of an older woman who is visibly distraught over a popular town monument—a life-sized statue known as Alice’s Angel. This grave has always been surrounded by an air of mystery—why did the young maid of one of Charleston’s wealthiest families warrant such an elaborate memorial in the family plot? The stranger’s grief at the gravesite is curious to Dovie, as Alice Tandy has been dead for more than 30 years. When the old woman drops a letter at the grave, Dovie’s curiosity gets the better of her and she snatches it up and reads it. The woman turns out to be Alice's estranged mother, and learning about the rift between mother and daughter, and the circumstances that led Alice to cross the sea from the Blackhurst Asylum for Unwed Mothers in England to Charleston, South Carolina, is far too compelling for Dovie to ignore. She discovers a trove of letters from Alice, somehow still tucked away in the cemetery’s lost and found, and learns just why Alice earned such a grand monument after all. Dovie admits what she has learned to Dora Tandy, and together they dig into the secrets that have been buried away for years. On the topic of grief, Davis writes, “It was inconvenient and intrusive, not quite contagious but the next thing to it.” Though they met merely by chance, together Dovie and Dora delve into the mysteries of the past and start on the long and complicated path toward closure and healing.
While Davis crafts compelling characters, her overreliance on secrets and plot gimmicks muddies the narrative.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-47481-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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by La Vonne Skalias with Barbara Davis
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
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New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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