A compelling and diverse historical novel.
Mayo presents a novel set in the world of health care in 1890 New York City.
Eighteen-year-old Lillian Dolan takes a job as a nursing assistant at the New York Cancer Hospital. Determined to make a better life for herself and her younger sister, Marie, who’s sightless and has a cognitive disorder due to the effects of scarlet fever, Lillian aims to prove that she has “a stomach built for nursing,” and she does her best to absorb all she can from her colleagues at the hospital so that she may one day become a nurse herself. But Lillian soon learns that the medical field is rife with questionable ethics, and she even finds herself rethinking her definitions of good and evil. When Lillian takes responsibility for the care of Mrs. Sokolova, a strong-willed Russian immigrant, she must confront a monumental moral challenge that could change her life forever. Along the way, a trio of supporting characters help Lillian grapple with the demands of her job and broaden the straight, White woman’s worldview: Michael Dolan, her caring and generous gay cousin; Jupiter Scott, an earnest Black crematorium worker; and Josephine, a witty lesbian sex worker. Mayo’s novel not only offers a close look at health care at the turn of the 20th century, but also addresses the racial, class, and sexual tensions that existed alongside strict, bigoted Victorian-era standards of morality. Mayo brings her characters and settings to life with deft prose and careful research. Her descriptions of the crowded streets of New York are visceral and authentic; for example, during Lillian’s commute to the hospital, she weaves through throngs of people with “hats, bobbing like corks in the sea. Derbys, Hombergs and flat caps of drab colors mixed with women’s bonnets.” Descriptions of medical procedures are graphic yet graceful; during a surgical procedure, for instance, Lilian observes the “terrain” of “blue veins and yellow clumps of fat and bulges of white and lavender, hills and valleys and rivers.”
A compelling and diverse historical novel.Pub Date: May 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-942762-83-6
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Heliotrope Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
