A competent, engaging, though unsurprising, romance.
Turner’s fiction debut is a romantic tale about a young doctor who discovers that life amounts to more than professional success.
Nate Williams is a 32-year-old cardiologist who has spent his entire life devoted to perfecting his professional skills. His devotion has come with a hefty price. Isolated from his peers due to his unwavering commitment to work, Nate leads a life devoid of culture and companionship and often finds the emotions of others unintelligible. After an exceptionally long, trying shift putting in stents, Nate finds himself arguing with an obese patient’s family members, who attempt to shift the blame of a heart attack from their unhealthy eating habits to their family member’s drinking and smoking. Almost getting into physical altercation, he’s put on leave from the hospital for a month and is angry, confused and worried about what to do with his free time—the first free time he has had since childhood. Despite his prickly nature, Nate is invited to a luau held by his co-worker (and favorite nurse) Sandy. After a personal debate, he attends and has a wonderful time. Nate finds Sandy to be beautiful and complex; a tentative romance buds between the two. Soon after, a disheveled Nate wanders into a bookstore; despite his unkempt appearance, he strikes up a conversation with the store’s owner, a vivacious young woman named Angela. The two become close fast, thanks in part to Angela’s inquisitive nature and willingness to include Nate in her many social activities and varied groups of friends. As Angela and Nate’s relationship grows, he finds himself awakened to a world he had shunned. Generally well-written and with developed characters, Turner’s first effort suffers from one major flaw: It’s a bit predictable. Readers familiar with the tale of the workaholic discovering the merits of life and love might find little here of interest. As Nate’s story increases in seriousness, the dialogue grows more clichéd: “Before I met him,” Angela states at one point, “Nate didn’t think he needed love in his life. Now I don’t think he can live without it.” Still, the storyline is heartfelt and maintains momentum.
A competent, engaging, though unsurprising, romance.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4917-2880-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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