A well-researched, engaging war tale infused with Christmas themes and a gentle romance.
A historical novel throws a young man into the World War I trenches with a glimpse of possible salvation through love.
November 1916. Deep in France in the Valley of the Somme, Harry Wheatly is “sick of dirt, sick of death, and sick of the everlasting mud.” He keeps colorful visions of Saskatchewan, Canada, alive by reading the Bible his grandmother gave him. Tragically, the book falls in the mud, so he takes it on an operation to Amiens, hoping to clean it. But he loses the Bible in a river, where local widow Rosemarie Legrand retrieves it. Seeing that the book is soaked, Harry loses hope until Rosemarie offers to dry it in the sun daily until his return. She treats the task like a mission: It is “vital to her to rescue his book as if it too had become a victim of war.” When possible, he brings Rosemarie and her son, Marcel, rations, but always deems the Bible in need of more drying as an excuse to return. Rosemarie eagerly anticipates Harry’s visits as he earns her love, and he tries to see her every Christmas morning as the war continues. But in 1918, when the Germans press into France, she must flee to the countryside and they lose track of each other. After the Armistice, Harry is sent to Wales. He contracts the Spanish flu, putting his love and life at risk. In the postwar chaos, many obstacles must be overcome if the lovers are to reunite. Warfield (Valentines From Bath, 2019, etc.) has authored numerous historical novels and this fourth entry in the Holiday Collection series continues to demonstrate her mastery of period details. The passages about civilian living conditions, military movements, and the soldiers’ challenges lend a laudable degree of authenticity to the story (When Harry “first reached France, he had found solace in writing poetry, but he had long run out of metaphors for death...Harry was sure he had begun to go mad the morning it occurred to him that even the fighting would be preferable to the long slow annihilation of those trapped in the hell of the trenches”). The romance is quiet with a touch of passion. A minor flaw is the lack of maps for readers who are less informed about World War I.
A well-researched, engaging war tale infused with Christmas themes and a gentle romance.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73324-501-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 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.
