Marred only by stiff dialogue, Laborie’s debut impresses with a sweeping saga full of historical detail and familial...
From the rise of industrialism through the bitter dregs of World War II, a ruthless patriarch strives to restore his family to social and economic eminence.
In the wee hours, a cloaked man delivers a mysterious child to the mother superior of a Parisian orphanage, saving one life but perhaps jeopardizing another. This rather gothic opening—riddled with dark alcoves along narrow avenues under an icy moon—foreshadows not only the web of lies that will constrain this orphan’s life, but also the web of family ties that Anselme Rochefort weaves to bind and ultimately estrange his children. (And that orphan will return to trouble the Rochefort empire.) The son of the powerfully connected and financially savvy Charles-Honoré Rochefort, Anselme nearly bankrupts the family textile business after his father’s death. Determined to prove his worth—but equally determined to indulge in his vices—Anselme sets out, coldbloodedly, to rebuild the family’s reputation and fortune. A marriage of convenience to the beautiful, wealthy, orphaned, and pregnant Eleanor Letellier infuses Anselme with much-needed capital and offers Eleanor social sanctuary. A broken heart, however, drives Eleanor to take her own life soon after the birth of her daughter, Catherine. Ever practical, Anselme quickly remarries, encouraging his second wealthy bride, Elisabeth Langlade, to raise Catherine as her own. Fifteen years and four children later, Elisabeth dotes on Catherine, Anselme ignores her, and, desperate for love, Catherine falls into the arms of a penniless man Anselme could never consider as a son-in-law. This is a world in which the highborn have the power to determine which families’ reputations are sterling enough to participate in economies both social and financial. Arranging the warp and weft of his children’s lives proves difficult for Anselme, however, particularly as his younger son, Sebastian, is drawn into the free love of political radicals and his favorite daughter, 9-year-old Faustine, falls in love with a farmer’s adopted son. The old world of convention collides with a new world of experimentation with calamitous consequences.
Marred only by stiff dialogue, Laborie’s debut impresses with a sweeping saga full of historical detail and familial melodrama.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0077-2
Page Count: 484
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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