A sentimental but moving family saga.
A young girl lives with her uncle after the tragic loss of her parents and helps him to seek love again.
This novel tells the heart-rending story of Paige Noble, a young girl who is the only survivor when her parents and brother are murdered by a Chicago gang. Now orphaned, Paige’s legal guardian is her closest surviving relative, dashing photographer Maxwell Noble. Though Maxwell, a womanizing celebrity artist who was estranged from Paige’s parents, seems like an unlikely candidate to adopt the girl, he promises to take care of her and raise her as his own. Joining this duo is Gladys Barker, mother of one of the gang members who committed the crime. Gladys, desperate to make amends, stays by Paige’s side while she is in the hospital and is overjoyed when the girl remembers that Gladys’ son Darren actually saved her from the other gang members. Paige and Gladys move into Maxwell’s large Chicago apartment, and the trio forms an unlikely makeshift family. The love they develop sustains them as Paige grows older and begins to investigate some questions about her family’s past. For example, who hurt Maxwell so badly that he is unable to commit to any woman? Who took the mysterious photos of her mother that Paige finds in an old trunk? And why did her mother insist that Paige never practice Judaism, the religion of her ancestors? The answers plunge Paige and Maxwell into the past but, ultimately, propel them into a new future together. Eisenberg (Pictures of the Past, 2011) tells a compelling story here. The author chronicles Paige’s evolution, detailing her initial fears that she would somehow lose her uncle (“When he went out in the evening, she would sit on her bedroom window seat, awaiting his return like a worried mother looking for her teenage daughter after a date”). The plot, however, turns predictable; readers will most likely guess how Paige and Maxwell will affect each other’s lives and how their search for love will end before the tale’s conclusion. And some of the writing is overly flowery, with too many lines like “Everything that happened just led me down a road and a turn in the road and a detour in the road, until the road led me to…you.” But overall, the novel remains engaging, if a little syrupy, in its unfolding.
A sentimental but moving family saga.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-52875-4
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Studio House Literary
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
