An imperfect debut that may still capture the audience’s attention and affection given its appealing themes and...
The mysterious disappearance of her local celebrity boyfriend sends Vivi McFadden to her best friend and attorney, Blake O’Hara Heart, and together, the two women explore history, friendship and matters of the heart to get to many different truths.
When Vivi is certain she’s killed her boyfriend, Lewis Heart, by, ahem, loving him to death, she calls the one person in the world she trusts to take care of her: Blake, her best friend since childhood and a crack attorney. But when the police get to the scene, the body has disappeared. Tracking down clues at first throws Vivi under suspicion, but the case gets more mysterious and complicated as the days pass, especially since Lewis is Blake’s brother-in-law, and Harry, Blake’s husband, has political aspirations. Also, the lead investigator on the case is Blake’s high school sweetheart, Sonny, which confuses Blake, since she and Harry suddenly seem to be moving toward different goals in life. The salacious nature of the whole story is embarrassing to Harry, and for a man who hopes to be a Senator, a sprawling, colorful cast of secondary characters with distinct Southern flairs can be troublesome. As Vivi, Blake, Sonny and Harry follow Lewis’ trail, secrets, attractions and attachments will play out in surprising ways, with distinct nods to the strength of family, the friendship sisterhood and the indomitable Southern spirit. Albright’s first novel is a frothy, frolicking story with enough over-the-top characters and quirky plot points that many readers won’t notice, or will be entertained enough to forgive, the roller-coaster pacing, the occasionally awkward storytelling, and the characters who do things that don’t always make sense for them or show them in admirable ways.
An imperfect debut that may still capture the audience’s attention and affection given its appealing themes and high-spirited style.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1528-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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