An engaging tale that sheds an intriguing light on some lesser-known Revolutionary War challenges.
A historical novel focuses on an engineer’s key role in the American Revolution.
When readers first meet Thomas Machin, he is a private in Britain’s 23rd Regiment of Foot. Tom has been sent to America with his fellow Red Coats to quash the rebellion. Life in the king’s service is a major disappointment. Even though Tom is a trained engineer, his superiors care little about his experience. What’s more, they are not particularly gifted leaders. Then there is the reality that British soldiers are frequently met with the lash for even the smallest infraction. All this, coupled with Tom’s interest in the American cause, convinces him to desert. Tom throws in his lot with the Continental Army. Although there are initial suspicions that he may be a spy, Tom proves his worth in the difficult task of moving artillery pieces from upstate New York to Massachusetts. His logistical abilities are further put to use on the Hudson River. If the Continental Army can place an iron chain across the Hudson, it can greatly hamper the mighty British navy. But with spies, financial impediments, and other challenges will the chain plan prove possible? Longstreth’s book takes a refreshingly nuanced angle on the Revolutionary War. Readers have probably heard of such historical figures as the American military officer Henry Knox but what of the unlikely, real-life patriot Tom Machin? Tactics such as moving cannons over icy terrain and sailing fire ships (vessels that have literally been set ablaze) into enemy boats make for some substantial historical fare. But not all of the interactions are quite as thought provoking. For instance, mealtime scenes can prove dull, as when a character asks questions like “What’s in the lamb stew, aside from lamb?” Yet in the end, the engrossing story allows readers to appreciate both the geographical and technological obstacles of 18th-century warfare. Move some cannons with oxen? Easier said than done. Stop the formidable British navy from controlling the Hudson? Better find a skilled engineer.
An engaging tale that sheds an intriguing light on some lesser-known Revolutionary War challenges.Pub Date: April 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-75050-7
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Honeycomb Publishers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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