Sexy Indian maidens, brooding Spaniards—more History Lite from the author of When We Were Gods (not reviewed).
The Conquistadors take a licking but keep on ticking.
Of course, that’s thanks to the intervention of the female slave Malinali, whose father prophesied the eventual downfall of the mighty lord of the Mexican people (Motecuhzoma’s personal representatives slaughtered the old man, and her jealous mother immediately sold Malinali into slavery). Her father always told Malinali that her destiny was disaster, that she is the drum who beats the sunset for Motecuhzoma, and that her future is with the gods—in particular with Feathered Serpent, who is expected to return any day now. Happily, Cortes more or less matches Feathered Serpent’s description, and Malinali is eager to interpret for the being she reveres as a god, though the hairy barbarians with him give her pause. Just for the hell of it, she puts a spin of her own on the words of both sides as she plots her revenge. The handsome Spaniard has a feeling she’s up to something, but her fathomless black eyes aren’t giving away any secrets. Cortes, no fool, assigns her and her girlfriends to deserving officers for some sensual R&R while he figures out what to do next. Chiefs and priests throw themselves at his feet, offering priceless gifts to appease the returned immortals, though some of the sneakier tribespeople observe that the supposed gods defecate in the woods just like mortal men. Cortes cares not a fig for the fine-feathered capes or bolts of cotton cloth, but the gold figurines get him excited indeed. Off to Tenochtitlan he goes to investigate the possibilities of plunder and terrorize the natives, and Malinali comes along to interpret some more and explain colorful local customs like tearing out people’s hearts and eating maggots. The sanctimonious Conquistadors are properly appalled and promptly run amok in various battles, eventually claiming the benighted land for Charles V and Christianity.
Sexy Indian maidens, brooding Spaniards—more History Lite from the author of When We Were Gods (not reviewed).Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-609-61029-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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