An offbeat though informative lesson in personal finance.
Debut author Longworth presents a brief allegorical novel about financial well-being.
Richard Wyvern may be a commoner with yellow teeth who “reeks of cat piss,” but thanks to his ability to accumulate wealth, he has attracted the attention of one King Gwayne Sterling. King Gwayne makes Richard his treasurer, a position that allows Richard to expound on topics like the importance of putting away a percentage of one’s income, acceptable kinds of debt, and the appeal of passive income streams. Meanwhile Richard’s brother Abelot, a skilled swordsman and blacksmith, embarks on a man-of-war called the Silver Hare. Abelot’s mission involves much more action than Richard’s number crunching, though Abelot will also exercise good economic sense on his adventure. Abelot even learns the importance of increasing one’s skill set when he encounters a blacksmith named Cahít Andíno who will sell him a book of techniques to improve the quality of his equipment. The story surrounding Richard and Abelot is not a mere collection of practical advice, however. Throughout the book, swords swing, snakes bite, and blood spills. The latter is especially true when Abelot dispatches a foe by throwing a “kukri dagger,” causing the target to fall “facedown onto the floor, unable to move.” The juxtaposition of hack-and-slash fiction with practical advice is certainly a strange one, though the message is not lost. If King Gwayne had been more careful in tracking his expenses, he might not have needed to hire Richard in the first place. The narrative becomes cluttered at times, with characters introducing themselves to other characters and minor characters being introduced to the reader (as with “Tax Collector Sim Fostand, a scrawny pale man who wears a beige cotton tunic”), but generally, the descriptions are sparse. The narrative moves unencumbered by too much backstory or the reasons why Richard knows so much about keeping a tidy account book. The book is short and can be understood in a single sitting.
An offbeat though informative lesson in personal finance.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9996809-0-2
Page Count: 106
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
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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