Well-crafted and satisfying.
Delinsky (More Than Friends, 2006, etc.) offers a polished drama featuring an otherwise responsible mother lying to police to protect her daughter.
When Deborah picks up teenage daughter Grace from a study group, she lets the girl drive home. Big mistake. A pouring rain, a dimly lit road, a couple of clandestine beers in Grace and a mild argument between the two contribute to hitting the runner that suddenly appears before them. And not just anyone; when they find his body by the road, Grace recognizes her history teacher Calvin McKenna. A doctor, Deborah stabilizes the man, who doesn’t seem critically hurt, calls an ambulance and has Grace run home to watch her little brother Dylan. When the police later question Deborah, they assume she was driving, and she doesn’t correct them. McKenna dies the next day, under mysterious circumstances, making the accident a potential vehicular homicide. Now Deborah’s uncalculated lie of omission has more serious implications, particularly in Grace’s life: She’s guilt-ridden, terrified the truth will come out and withdrawing from school and friends. Deborah begins to wonder if McKenna is the real victim. After all, why was he running so far from home? Why didn’t he alert hospital staff about the medication he was taking? The accident investigation pushes the story forward, and Delinsky does a fine job creating sympathetic characters with personal problems. Deborah, for one, shares a medical practice with her imposing father, who may be turning into an alcoholic. Younger sister Jill owns a successful bakery and is unwed and pregnant. Ex-husband Greg manages to infuriate Deborah years after their divorce. And to top it off, Deborah’s best friend’s husband—now her lawyer in the matter of the accident—has pledged to her his undying love. Making everything just a bit more complicated is the mutual attraction between Deborah and Tom McKenna, the dead man’s brother. By novel’s end the bizarre life and death of Calvin McKenna is explained, and much domestic turmoil is soothed, with happier days in sight.
Well-crafted and satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-51868-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
A moving, sad, and sometimes disarmingly funny take on migration and the forces that propel us into the world.
Ana Canción is 15 when her parents marry her off to 32-year-old Juan Ruiz as part of a business arrangement, and she leaves her family farm in the Dominican Republic to move to New York City.
In this coming-to-America story, the harsh realities of immigration are laid bare, but equally clear are the resilience and resourcefulness of the people who choose to make a new life far from home. It’s the early 1960s, and there is tumult in the U.S. and abroad—the Vietnam War is raging, and the D.R. plunges into chaos when dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated. Author Cruz (Let It Rain Coffee, 2006, etc.) based the book on her own mother’s experiences, and Ana’s narration is wry and absorbing. Once Ana has arrived at her new apartment in Washington Heights, Juan proves himself to be a lousy husband, at best demanding and at worst abusive. At first, Ana’s days are a bleak litany of chores and unwanted sex. But slowly, her life in New York begins to broaden, especially when Juan travels back to the D.R. on an extended business trip. By now, Ana is pregnant, but with Juan away, she is free to take English classes from the nuns across the street and scheme up ways to earn her own money, selling fried pastelitos with the help of her brother-in-law, César. César is younger than Juan, more fun than his brother, and kinder, too. César reminds Ana that joy exists—and that it can be hers—as when he surprises her with her first hot dog at Coney Island. Ultimately, though, Ana is her own strength and salvation. As she tells her ill-fated brother, Yohnny, before she leaves for New York, “I don’t need anyone to save me.”
A moving, sad, and sometimes disarmingly funny take on migration and the forces that propel us into the world.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20593-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
A smart, riveting psychological thriller.
Just a month after moving to Hanoi in 1933, Jessie Lesage has lost her husband and daughter in the train station. Why will no one believe her? Why does everyone insist she arrived alone?
Happily married to Victor, a lesser member of the renowned Michelin family, Jessie has transformed from the eldest child of impoverished Virginian parents into a polished Parisian socialite. With their young daughter, Lucie, she is eager to help her husband gain a stronger foothold in the family business by moving to French colonial Indochina, where Victor can personally oversee the rubber plantations and factories. Given the recent unrest among the workers, still derogatively called “coolies” in the 1930s, the Michelins need a strong hand to quell potential worker uprisings. Of course, Jessie has a few personal reasons for wanting to leave France, too, including her meddlesome mother-in-law and her own past. Once in Hanoi, the Lesages meet the French expatriates, including Arnaud de Fabry, a prominent financier, and his wife, Marcelle. A former fashion model–turned–bon vivant with an Indochinois silk tycoon for a lover, Marcelle quickly tucks Jessie under her wing. Soon, however, the shadows thicken. Not surprisingly, Victor does discover a communist overseer at one of the plantations. More strangely, on a business mission from Victor, Jessie witnesses a policeman (an officer eager to impress the Michelins) tossing the body of a tortured man into the streets, an event that sets in motion a plot of dastardly intent. Shifting focus back and forth between characters, Tanabe (The Diplomat's Daughter, 2017, etc.) reveals secrets in exquisitely paced steps—just when the reader thinks she knows who can be trusted, Tanabe’s tale twists into another back alley, exposing another unexpected skeleton in a closet. With doubt clouding every corner, Tanabe ratchets up the tension as Marcelle seeks political and personal vengeance, and Jessie increasingly cannot tell reality from imagination.
A smart, riveting psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-23147-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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