A charming Victorian-era tale of love, loss, and family connections.
A mysterious piece of music offers links to the past in Kennedy’s (Holybourne, 2017, etc.) latest historical novel.
Marianne Mandeville and her husband, Charles, enjoy a contented life on their vast estate, Winthrope. Loving, compassionate Marianne’s free-spirited ways charm her husband but vex her parents and mother-in-law, who wish that she were more formal and less generous with the Roma people who live on the estate. A talented pianist, Marianne is enchanted by a partially completed composition that she discovered on a trip to the village. When Charles dies in a horse-riding accident, Marianne is bereft. Devastated, she goes horseback riding in a storm in an attempt to end her life. After she’s thrown from her steed and knocked unconscious, she wakes to find a tiny miracle: a baby girl, the sole survivor of a tragic carriage accident. The only clue to the infant’s identity is a piece of music found in a nearby trunk. Titled “Georgiana,” the completed composition matches the partial one from the town. Marianne raises the girl, now named Georgiana, as her daughter, but as she gets older, the youngster wants to learn more about her family. The search leads them both on a remarkable journey to reunite a composer with his precious legacy. Inspired by the musical pieces “Algonquin Trails” and “Stormy Sunday” by composer Hennie Bekker, Kennedy’s novel is a keenly observed meditation on the love of a parent for a child and the healing power of music. Marianne is a beguiling heroine who’s shown to be committed to treating everyone, from her husband to her servants to the Roma living nearby, with compassion and dignity. Although he has a limited role, Marianne’s husband, Charles, provides an equal amount of love and understanding, and their scenes together are playful and passionate. In many respects, however, the novel is as much Georgiana’s story as Marianne’s, especially in the sections in which they search for Georgiana’s surviving family. The narrative moves at a steady pace throughout, with the composition “Georgiana” playing a key role. The strong supporting cast also includes Molly Bickers, Marianne’s beloved governess.
A charming Victorian-era tale of love, loss, and family connections.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-945494-13-0
Page Count: 219
Publisher: Kennedy Literary
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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