An engaging historical novel starring one of the author’s ancestors.
A woman chronicles political events and her diverse relationships in 19th-century Germany.
In this historical novel, Maynard (co-author: A Photographer’s Guide to Colorado’s National Parks and Monuments, 2015) uses stories passed down as family history to imagine the life of her great-great-grandmother Anastasia Burkart. Anastasia, born in 1796, grows up as the daughter of a tailor in a small German town and eventually becomes her father’s apprentice and takes over his shop. She never marries but gives birth to three children, two of whom survive to adulthood, and observes and comments on Germany’s role in European politics, from the Napoleonic Wars through the 1848 unrest and eventual unification. The overall narrative is a quiet one, focused closely on Anastasia’s relationships and what it takes for her to survive. She is a compelling narrator, alert, practical, and shrewd. When she becomes pregnant with her last child, she hides her condition with her sister’s help (“Francisca took care of shopping, cooking, gardening, and the housework, as she had always done. I had no need to be seen in the market or at the bakery, at the festivals, or out on the streets”). After Francisca leaves the newborn baby on the steps of a church, Anastasia offers to adopt him, allowing her to find praise rather than censure in parenthood. The small dramas—convincing her father to take on a female apprentice, losing a childhood sweetheart to war, being abandoned by a fiance—that make up Anastasia’s world provide the book’s action and conflict. Maynard touches on many relevant topics—religious divisions, smallpox inoculation, the guild system—within the context of the narrative, revealing substantial research and knowledge without burying readers in an excess of information. She also provides sufficient context (“Although the birth of children to couples who intended to marry but were not yet able to do so was decried as sinful by the priests, the young couple was not usually shunned by the community if it was understood that they would be married at the first opportunity”) to make it clear that Anastasia’s unconventional life was nevertheless not outside the norms of her time and place. Although the story is neither fast-paced nor high-stakes, Maynard delivers an engrossing and well-developed narrative that should appeal to fans of domestic fiction.
An engaging historical novel starring one of the author’s ancestors.Pub Date: July 19, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 183
Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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