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THE WRITINGS OF SILVANUS

Name: THE WRITINGS OF SILVANUS
Author: Dana Cottrell

by Dana Cottrell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 31, 2016

An unevenly paced historical novel aimed at a Christian audience.

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In Cottrell’s (Visions and Dreams, 2011, etc.) novel, lost scrolls tell the story of a Greek woman’s unwavering faith and rise to power.

Two college students discover 20 ancient scrolls, written by a Jewish man named Silvanus at a time when much of the world was under Roman rule. In them, he documents a range of political and cultural events in the first century, from the mundane to the extraordinary; his family acquires money and safety by running a guesthouse for Roman travelers, and they travel frequently to make money as traders “of all sorts.” Silvanus also devotes a good deal of space in his scrolls to the birth of Christianity. His family members are Jesus’ contemporaries, and they become converts and evangelists of the new religion. Silvanus’ plucky sister, Rachael, often takes center stage in the narrative as she grows into a scholar, preacher, and businesswoman. Her fearless nature, intelligence, and beauty eventually make her the most powerful woman in Greece, even as she remains devoted to her persecuted Christian faith. Rachael and the rest of Cottrell’s characters embody Jesus’ biblical declaration that “with God all things are possible,” and the novel seems to echo his characters’ evangelical mission, which will likely limit its appeal to Christian readers. Rachael is indeed a fascinating character. However, Cottrell offers no notes that separate fact from fiction or any background on his historical research; as a result, readers may wonder if Rachael is an actual historical figure or an analogue of one. The larger issue for readers, though, will be the book’s lack of narrative momentum. The novel reads very much like a journal, with no overarching tension or specific direction; as a result, the plot drags at times, particularly during long sequences depicting travel and trade. The abrupt ending, when the scrolls run out, leaves readers to guess at Silvanus’ and his family’s fates.

An unevenly paced historical novel aimed at a Christian audience.

Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2016

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 212

Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 31, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

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Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.