An effective tale for readers who like biblical history and legend with their young love.
In this debut historical romance, a Hebrew princess and an Irish warrior fall in love, but duty may keep them apart.
In 586 B.C., Jerusalem has fallen to the Babylonians. Princess Teia Tamar, almost 15 and the Judean king’s oldest daughter, must flee the city with the prophet Jeremiah, who brings with him the Bethel Stone that was Jacob’s pillow. They find refuge in Egypt, along with a scattered band of Hebrew refugees. Also in Egypt is Eochaid Finn, 21, son of Ireland’s high king. He’s sailed far from home, but legends say his people were originally an Israelite colony that came to Erin via Spain. Jeremiah reveals that it’s Eochaid’s destiny to rule in David’s line, a line that is also Teia’s, but his people must turn away from Baal. When Teia and Eochaid meet, they are instantly and deeply attracted, feeling as if they’ve always known each other. But they both have duties: Eochaid must return home, while Teia must serve her God and study Jeremiah’s scrolls. Over the next several years, Eochaid makes a dangerous sea journey, braving pirates, storms, and political intrigue once he reaches Erin. Jeremiah, meanwhile, insists they sail away from idolatrous Egypt with Teia as guardian of the Stone. This also becomes a treacherous odyssey, and a tempest blows them off course—to Erin, where Eochaid, now high king, is about to wed. Can the royal lines of David unite, with the Stone in their throne room? Brittain offers a well-researched, solidly described novel based on legend and history (a selected bibliography is attached) that’s bolstered by scriptural quotations on God’s covenant with Israel. The notion of this covenant as a kind of marriage is well supported in both the Old and New Testaments, which adds some weight and significance to the love story. The romance is chaste and feather light, seeming barely translated from a 1950s high school, with (for example) Eochaid’s torque standing in for a class ring. Brittain’s diction wobbles between high style (“I live for him, the Creator of all that we see…and all that remains hidden”) and contemporary (“Hannah put on a pouty face”), which can become jarring.
An effective tale for readers who like biblical history and legend with their young love.Pub Date: July 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5069-0229-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: First Edition Design eBook Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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