A whimsical portrayal of life after separation.
An empty nester realizes that being dumped doesn’t necessarily mean the end of romance.
Sarah is eager to embrace a peaceful country life of painting, tea breaks and old movies with her husband when their twin sons take off to backpack around India. However, Andrew, her hubby of 20 years, has other plans—and they don’t include his 43-year-old wife. When Andrew packs up and moves in with a saucy young actress named Hyacinth, with whom he claims to have finally uncovered the meaning of true love, Sarah is at first angry and ashamed, then resigns herself to making the most of life. She kicks her painting profession into high gear, keeps up social appearances in her small English town and even agrees to play the lead in the local theater production of Rebecca. Part of her new Single Woman routine involves weekly walks, which allow her to spend time learning lines with another jilted lover, Martin. As the days go on, Sarah convinces herself that sex is overrated; all she really needs is hot chocolate and reruns of ER. But when an old friend invites her to Majorca for a weeklong adventure, she plunges headfirst into a heart-thumping affair with a former art-school classmate, a mysterious, handsome fellow she once fancied. Upon her triumphant return home, though, she discovers two men who are not so pleased with the fresh blush in Sarah’s cheeks.
A whimsical portrayal of life after separation.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4165-1329-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Downtown Press/Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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