A sharp, affecting novel of pain and love.
In Musick’s debut literary novel, a flustered teenager tries to save her friend and uncover the secrets of her family.
Texas, 1980. Sporty, 14-year-old Lilac has a reputation as a tomboy. She doesn’t have any friends since her old brother stopped hanging out with her, so she happily accepts attention from Esther, a girl across the street, even though Esther’s family “wasn’t our kind of people.” When Esther kisses Lilac on the mouth, Lilac goes along with, not wanting to jeopardize the new friendship. However, that very same day, Esther’s mother is murdered while out shopping with Lilac’s mom. Lilac can tell her mother—a deeply religious and condescending woman—is lying to the police about what happened, but she can’t understand why. Her father, an accountant who dresses as a cowboy to ingratiate himself with the locals, is no help either. Lilac attempts to cover for her friend when Esther acts out following her mother’s death. At the same time, Lilac must contend with the seizures she’s been suffering from as well as with a family secret she discovers. As the story unfolds, a history of abuse, violence, and lies concerning both families emerges, leaving young Lilac struggling just to keep her head above water. Musick’s prose, as narrated by Lilac, is earnest but naïve, reflecting the protagonist’s implicit autism: “Esther had her own secrets, of course. We’d only been best friends for a handful of days, but I felt betrayed anyway. I was surrounded by secrets, drowning in them, and nobody had taught me how to swim this river.” It’s a heartbreaking story, filled with abusive adults and traumatized children, and one cannot help but feel deeply for Lilac and Esther. The subject can be emotionally difficult, but Musick never loses sight of the humanity of his characters. Through the believably brave and endearingly honest Lilac, the author explores issues of religious and sexual trauma, neurodivergence and disability, grief and loneliness.
A sharp, affecting novel of pain and love.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953971-02-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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