Not even the Great War can jar this novel out of its stalwart complacency.
Life—and melodrama—upstairs and downstairs at a Yorkshire stately home, as World War I nears.
Sound familiar? Cavendon, however, lacks the tension that launched Downton Abbey to such acclaim. The estate is not threatened: Primogeniture is working just fine, given that Charles Ingham, sixth Earl of Mowbray, has two sons in addition to his four daughters; and the fiefdom is certainly not broke. Moreover, the Inghams have another advantage the Crawleys lack: the Swann family, whose members have, for more than 160 years, sworn to protect and serve them. Now, Walter Swann is the Earl's staunch valet; his wife, Alice, and daughter Cecily see to matters of décor and wardrobe; Swann matriarch Charlotte (the Earl’s friend from childhood) is de facto estate manager; and her nephew Percy supervises Cavendon’s extensive grounds as gamekeeper. Into this latter-day feudal utopia some trouble must fall, and it's introduced when Daphne, loveliest of the Earl’s daughters, is raped by Richard, the eldest son of a neighboring family of country squires. At first advised by the Swanns to say nothing of her violation, secrecy is no longer possible once Daphne realizes she's pregnant. To avert scandal, plans are made to send Daphne abroad, which are soon mooted when second cousin Hugo Stanton—a vastly wealthy, good-hearted tycoon once wrongfully exiled from the family—returns and falls in love with Daphne at first sight. A hasty marriage ensues. Other conflicts emerge almost as afterthoughts to swathes of pages devoted to Bradford’s usual meticulous inventories of gracious living. Although Richard is clearly behind a number of sinister events, the motivation for his villainy is never explored. Such a vague antagonist does nothing to undermine the book’s deep conviction that no crisis is insurmountable given loyal friends, splendid furnishings and unlimited funds.
Not even the Great War can jar this novel out of its stalwart complacency.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-03235-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
IN THE NEWS
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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