A complex thriller that offers intense romance and suspense.
When a serial killer strikes a Missouri plantation, a slave and her lover discover they must outwit a cunning and devious psychopath in this historical novel.
Matthew Colburn is the scion of a prosperous Missouri family. His parents hope he will become a doctor and carry on the family legacy as owner of their plantation with a wealthy bride by his side. Matthew dreams of training as an architect and pursuing a romance with Sarah, a beautiful slave on the plantation. Sarah is attracted to Matthew, but because of their positions in society, they feel romance is an impossibility. In the spring of 1850, a mystery unfolds when Mali, a teenage slave, disappears one evening. Her sister, Anna, initially believes there is an innocent explanation, but then she also vanishes under curious circumstances. At the same time, Matthew and Sarah face a crossroads in their friendship. Matthew’s parents want him to wed his spoiled cousin, Francesca, while two potential suitors ask for Sarah’s hand in marriage. Unable to deny their feelings, Matthew and Sarah elope, but their happiness is fraught with danger. When two more people disappear, the Colburns discover a killer is in their midst, a murderer with a special interest in Matthew and Sarah. This series opener from DuBois (A Tale as Old as Time, 2018, etc.) is a richly detailed historical thriller brimming with intriguing, well-developed characters and a fast-paced plot that offers a plethora of surprising twists and turns. Matthew is a dynamic and multilayered hero. Devoutly religious, he objects to slavery and strives to treat everyone with respect and dignity. This sentiment extends to his dealings with Sarah. Despite his attraction to her, he refuses to take advantage of his position to coerce her into a physical relationship. This restraint helps create and maintain the romantic tension in his connection with Sarah. He is complemented by Sarah, an intelligent and strong-willed woman who tries to avoid any negative repercussions for his family because of their liaison. The author successfully balances the romance with a gripping murder mystery that, while violent, is never gratuitous.
A complex thriller that offers intense romance and suspense.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973100-17-1
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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