After some 25 novels, Michaels (Houses of Stone, 1993, etc. etc.) by now has got her routine down pat, and this latest is no different: It won't knock your socks off, but the intrigue just won't quit. American schoolteacher Heather Tradescent's plan to travel to England to visit the country's historic gardens with her parents is cut short when the two die in a car accident. Heather, who was especially close to her father, is in her mid-20s and, now, virtually alone in the world. In an attempt to aid her emotional recovery and follow through on her father's desire to explore the gardens, she decides to make the trip by herself; with substantial insurance money in hand, she sets out on what is initially a very lonely journey. The trip proves so depressing, in fact, that she decides to return home after one last stop: Troytan House, an estate once owned by a man named Tradescent, who may have been her ancestor. The town, as Heather quickly discovers, is obsessed with a supposed case of witchcraft and, in particular, with a witch named ``Old Demdike.'' When Heather finds her way into Troytan House by way of an overgrown, ominous maze, she, too, becomes swept up in the witchcraft craze. Troytan House's current owner, the wealthy and eccentric Frank Karim, persuades Heather that she should stay and help him restore the grounds to their former 17th- century glory; a garden-lover in her own right, Heather can't turn down the offer. Meanwhile, secondary characters are each more mysterious and unpredictable than the other: caretaker Sean; Frank's son Jordan; the next-door neighbors, the Betancourts and Frank's friend Jennetall know a good deal more about witching than they let on. The supernatural stuff never gets silly or overblown, while Michaels's own subtle touch lends an effective air of spookiness to an intriguing study of a woman's coming into her own. ($100,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-017764-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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