Earnest Fergal is easy to root for, but too many happy endings make it difficult to care.
Sappy sequel to The Arrival of Fergal Flynn (2005).
Gay Irish opera singer Fergal Flynn has come a long way from his humble beginnings. Growing up in 1980s Belfast, the soft-spoken, enormously talented young man endured the indignities of both war and an abusive family. Father Mac, a handsome young priest who believed in Fergal’s talent, rescued him emotionally and physically, then introduced him to opera legend Alfredo Moretti. Because of Father Mac, Fergal is able to leave behind his miserable Irish life and go to Rome to work under Alfredo’s tutelage. Alfredo and his sister Arianna welcome the lad with open arms, effusive praise and countless gifts and opportunities. Fergal is grateful, and he hardly misses Belfast, but he does long for the intimacies he shared with Father Mac. An unsuccessful sexual attempt with a girl and a meaningless encounter with a married man don’t assuage his craving for an emotional connection, and his singing suffers. When his father dies, Fergal returns home and tries to seduce Father Mac, who spurns him in the hopes that he will become more independent in Rome. Back in Italy, Fergal throws himself into singing and assisting Brendan Fiscetti, a visiting opera star. He learns that Brendan and Alfredo had once been best friends, but Alfredo’s unrequited love for Brendan drove them apart. Conveniently, the old friends reconnect just as Brendan’s young, handsome, gay son Fintan comes to visit. Fergal and Fintan fall passionately in love, Fintan decides to relocate his painting career to Italy, and Fergal gives his first recital to universal acclaim—including that of his estranged mother, who comes to Italy for a much-anticipated visit.
Earnest Fergal is easy to root for, but too many happy endings make it difficult to care.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-340-83232-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Hodder Headline Ireland/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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