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THE HALDANES

Name: THE HALDANES
Author: Caroline Crosby
ISBN: 0-312-09303-9

by Caroline Crosby ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 1993

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An intriguing departure for Jessica Stirling, writing as Crosby, from her chronicles of struggle and bootstrap triumphs in 19th-century Glasgow and from the richly peopled courtroom period drama (Lantern for the Dark, 1992): here, in a 1920's tale set mainly in a girls' boarding school in Scotland, an insecure and lonely 15-year-old girl finds direction and a kind of security. Pretty, flirty Barbara, Pauline's mother, took off with a lover when Pauline was eight, leaving her with her adored father, Harry. Life in London is good, then, until Barbara's own father- -fierce old Grandfather Haldane—forces Harry to take a job in South Africa and sends Pauline to St. Austin's, the ``family'' boarding school in Scotland. In the meantime, Barbara's lover has died, and she is now pregnant by—and awaiting marriage to— unpleasant Mark Straker. Pauline's misery will lift at the school, where there are friends, although her horrid cousin Stella— acidulous, sexy, mean as a hornet—is also there. At Christmastime, Pauline spends the holiday with the Haldanes in their handsome country home, a time of both jollity, with male cousins and a rough but kindly uncle, and nervous recognitions: of Barbara's unhappiness, Mark's callousness, and Stella's predation. It is on the trip back to school with Stella that Pauline gains the upper hand—to embrace a sister the family shunned—with the result that she can return to school ``safer than she had ever been.'' A leisurely period novel, in tune with its times and upper- caste juvenilia—but the long outdated British slang and mores will undoubtedly deter American teens who might be attracted by Pauline's dilemma. Before its delicately poignant coda, the novel offers some tangy talk, a great house-hunt, and school banter. It's all there, ``old son,'' for anyone yearning for an Anglophilic bash.

Pub Date: July 21, 1993

ISBN: 0-312-09303-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.