A fairly romanticized view of history, yet an amiable first effort sure to appeal to the many fans of the genre.
A debut novel jumping between the saucy adventures of a 17th-century courtesan and the 21st-century academic researching her life.
Claire Donovan is almost finished with her dissertation on Alessandra Rossetti when she learns a Cambridge professor is about to challenge her entire thesis at an Italian conference. A bit of luck comes through when the economically strapped Claire gets a free trip to Venice—all she has to do is chaperone 14-year-old Gwen while the girl’s father honeymoons in France. Claire hopes to learn what the scholar has planned and then beat him to publishing. It sounds reasonable stateside, but that’s before Claire lands in magical Venice, where beautiful men and sparkling canals blur her focus. Not to mention escorting a girl with purple hair and an attitude, far different from the teenager Claire has spent the last two years of her life researching. Alessandra Rossetti is not yet 18 when her father and brother (and their fortune) are lost at sea. She briefly becomes the mistress of her financial advisor, but when he dies, Alessandra finds herself penniless. Without dowry or virginity, marriage prospects are slim, leaving the only other alternative—the convent. Or is it? The premier courtesan of Venice, La Celestia, accepts Alessandra as a protégé, and Alessandra takes to a life of prostitution. But soon political power plays involve her in ways that endanger her life. The fictional plot turns on a bit of history—the Spanish controlled most of Italy at the time, with the exception of Venice, which they had hoped to invade. In this telling, Venice can thank its sovereignty to Alessandra. Both Claire and Alessandra have more adventure than they bargained for (Claire is courted by a gorgeous architect, then nearly thrown in jail over a misunderstanding), but by the end, it will come as little surprise that things end well for our heroines. The dialogue is often exposition-heavy and the coincidences are a bit too much, but Phillips’s depiction of lonely Claire blossoming in Venice is nicely told.
A fairly romanticized view of history, yet an amiable first effort sure to appeal to the many fans of the genre.Pub Date: March 6, 2007
ISBN: 1-4165-2737-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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
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
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