Victor's hardcover debut—a contemporary romance that probes the powerful bonds between mother and daughter, despite a fate that seems to have forced them forever apart. A childhood bout with polio leaves Kailey Davids with a slight limp and a permanent sense of being different, so that despite her good looks and adoring parents, she remains a loner. Then she meets the handsome, smooth-talking Cameron Hawkes. Kailey is too naive to realize that Cameron is after the business and social connections he thinks her affluent parents can provide; but soon after their marriage, his indifference to her and their infant daughter are revealed. Far worse, though, is Kailey's discovery that his unscrupulous business practices are responsible for a child's death. When she tries to leave him, she's followed by two of his henchmen, who have instructions to kill her. But though her car is pushed over the edge of a cliff, a young au pair, and not Kailey, is the one to die. And unbeknownst to anyone, their little daughter is also a survivor, first left in an orphanage and then raised in foster homes. For the next 25 years, Kailey inwardly mourns the death of her child. And for the next 25 years, that child—now called Susannah Holland—grows into a woman who never stops longing to find her real parents. When the two meet (Susannah is now a photographer assigned to take pictures of the Cambodian refugees whose cause Kailey devotes herself to), they are drawn to each other instantly, though neither has an idea of their real relationship. It's Cameron who'll put together the pieces of the puzzle; when he does, he flies to Thailand immediately.... Well-paced and readable for devotees of the genre.
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-83884-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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