A compelling, redemptive story.
A young woman finds home, her people, and God in a Christian-based coming-of-age tale with dramatic family elements set in New Orleans.
Jillian Slater gets an enigmatic phone call asking her to come back to New Orleans for her father’s funeral only to discover it wasn’t Olivia Fontaine, her grandmother, who invited her but rather Adella, the woman who manages Saint Sans, the building Olivia owns and lives in, a repurposed church with three renters. Adella hopes the two estranged relatives will reconcile, but instead they are both angry with her, and Jillian leaves in rushed outrage just as the police arrive to inform Olivia that, after further inspection, they’ve realized her son, basically a homeless man, was murdered. Jillian returns home to San Francisco and her problematic relationship with Vince, the wealthy and domineering owner of the restaurant where she works. Believing he’s about to throw her out of the apartment they share, she leaves town with barely the clothes on her back and $1,000 she takes from him—since he controls her finances and she has no money. With nowhere else safe to go, she heads back to New Orleans and turns up at Saint Sans. Adella convinces Olivia to let her stay for a week, a period of time which grows longer and longer, as Jillian and Olivia soften toward each other, Jillian settles in to her new life, and all the residents of Saint Sans grow closer together, especially when they have to confront a strange enemy who’s leaving malevolent tokens on the doorstep. Evangelist Moore moves into Christian fiction with an engaging storyline and occasionally great writing, though at times the overly simplistic “this is good, this is bad, righteous people get miracles” messages may make some readers pause, and the small, secondary historical storyline seems dropped in with little context and a jarring Job-like note.
A compelling, redemptive story.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4694-1947-6
Page Count: 460
Publisher: Tyndale House
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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