Familiar passions on display in Merrie old England—but described with all the sharp edges of a modern sensibility—in this first US appearance for agreeable British writer Birch. The setting is medieval England, where lords hunt with pet hawks and carouse nightly in their drafty castles, but Birch's England is more dull sepia than bright technicolor. An underlying sense of menace pervades the landscape as the mysterious Bayardine and his band rob the rich, witches weave spells, and rumors of a landless multitude on the move frighten the gentry. Young Belle, betrothed since childhood to a wealthy neighboring noble's son, the effete William, escapes nightly from her home—where her father is dying and where ambitious brother Hugh suffers from terrifying nightmares—to tryst with handsome peasant John Herron. In love with what she knows to be the ``utterly forbidden,'' Belle is discovered by Hugh, who lures Herron into the forest, where he brutally cuts his throat but not fatally, for Herron is rescued by an old soothsayer who lives with Bayardine and his band. Forced to marry William and move to his father's castle, Belle mourns Herron's absence, but when her jealous father-in-law, suspecting his wife of having an affair with Bayardine, has Hugh kill him, Belle learns just what happened to Herron. There is a happy ending of sorts as Herron appears and claims Belle, but this is a story infused with contemporary attitudes of realism, not romance; as the lovers flee the castle, a hawk seizes Belle's beloved parrot. Notice is served that the world out there continues to be a dark and nasty place. With all the verve and freshness of a natural storyteller, Birch transforms what could have been a ho-hum gothic romance into a very contemporary love story. A fine debut.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-345-37804-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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