Thoughtful, measured storytelling with moments of tremendous heart.
An aimless Wisconsin handyman comes to terms with his troubled past through new love.
At 29, Cash hasn’t lived a glamorous life: He’s a cigarette-smoking sometimes-painter who works odd jobs to make ends meet; an occasional writer who never followed the passion; and a burgeoning alcoholic who spends most of his free time at Jimmy’s Place, a local bar tended to by Saul, the son of his father’s best friend. He still lives in his childhood home, left to him after his mother died in a car accident and his father, broken by the loss, fled town without warning. There, Cash (whose surname we never learn) and his two best friends, Leon and Prince, spend countless hours reminiscing about the past and dreaming up schemes for the future, fantasizing about all the ways they might leave the small town of Johnston but never quite following through on any of them. It’s a town full of hardworking people, but Cash longs for more, “to have one beautiful moment of purpose.” The moment arrives when Rose, a young woman Cash doesn’t recognize (rare in Johnston), walks into Jimmy’s Place one evening and he’s instantly smitten. Cash learns that Rose is Saul’s sister, and the family connection feels fated. As Cash is pulled deeper into a relationship with Rose, he’s simultaneously pulled deeper into the history and legacy of Johnston, reflecting anew on the nature of the town and the people who inhabit it. Rose may represent a bright new chapter in Cash’s story, but to begin it Cash must first confront his own past, starting with the father who left Cash adrift in the same dead-end life he’d abandoned. Skogman’s debut is a love letter to bar-stool philosophizing and a tender portrait of small-town life with a simple but powerful message: There’s always something special about home.
Thoughtful, measured storytelling with moments of tremendous heart.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781951213954
Page Count: 301
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
