Promises to be an intriguing saga, both in print and eventually, perhaps, on Masterpiece.
A Swedish heiress is ensnared by the aristocracy she tried to renounce in this novel by bestselling German author Bomann.
It’s 1913, and Agneta, daughter of Count Thure Lejongård of Lion Hall, having legally emancipated herself from her family, is pursuing the bohemian life as a painter and art student in Stockholm. She’s also, along with best friend Marit, an ardent activist for women’s rights, including the vote. (The translation from the original German opts for the outmoded term suffragette.) A telegram from home puts an end to this free-wheeling lifestyle. Her father and his male heir apparent, Agneta’s beloved brother, Hendrik, have died by fire while rescuing Lion Hall’s herd of valuable horses from a burning stable. Her mother, Stella, at first proves vindictive when Agneta assumes, reluctantly, the title of Countess and Mistress of Lion Hall. From here, the action is agonizingly slow, not helped by the competent but stilted translation. Although the narration is in first person, Agneta always seems to be regarding herself at a distance. The leisurely exposition, though frustrating, is not surprising since this is the first book of a trilogy. Agneta investigates a puzzling debt left by her father and wins her mother’s grudging and intermittent trust. Under Agneta’s control, Lion Hall maintains its close ties to the royal family, once the royals are reassured arson will not reoccur on their next visit. Agneta rejects an advantageous proposal from her childhood friend Lennard Ekberg, himself heir to a grand estate. She is holding out for a love match. Her first true love, fellow artist Michael, disdained marrying into the aristocracy, but now Agneta’s affections are ripe for trifling with by her estate manager, Max, landless younger son of German nobles. World War I has ignited, and we are well into spoiler territory by the time anything truly momentous happens. But happen it will. Suffice it to say that the Lejongård line continues, buffeted by misfortune and encroaching modernity. Stay tuned for Volume 2.
Promises to be an intriguing saga, both in print and eventually, perhaps, on Masterpiece.Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1684-1
Page Count: 527
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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