A pleasant blend of light humor, drama and cracking historical naval action—another solid entry in the series.
Lambdin’s rough-but-lovable rascal Captain Alan Lewrie (King, Ship, and Sword, 2010, etc.) returns for a 17th installment.
Following the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens, war is back on between England and Bonaparte’s France, and Lewrie finds himself off the coast of Haiti in his frigate Reliant. Lewrie, along with fellow seamen on other ships in his squadron, sits outside Port-au-Prince harbor awaiting the surrender of a group of French ships, as the island's former colonizers have just been expelled following L’Ouverture’s successful rebellion. After a close call trying to save a ship full of civilians run aground within sight of the vengeful guns of the long-oppressed Haitians, Lewrie and the other captains head north, to escort a fleet of merchant ships back to England—“herding cats,” as Lewrie’s puts it. Before they set off, though, Lewrie learns that he is to be knighted soon after his return to England, although he fears it may be more out of sympathy for the loss of his wife—murdered by French assassins—than a reward for meritorious service. During the ceremony, King George III, famous for his poor mental health, extends himself a little farther than intended, to Captain Sir Alan’s benefit. During the fêting that surrounds the ceremony, Lewrie meets the lovely Lydia Stangbourne and her rakish brother Percy. Lewrie hasn’t been involved with a woman since his wife’s death. Neither he nor Lydia are unknown to scandal, and they soon develop deeper feelings. But, as always, new orders come in, and soon Lewrie is helping to test an experimental weapon that threatens to rub wrong even Lewrie’s notoriously flexible sense of military honor. Although the book doesn’t really stand on its own—it’s not meant too, of course—newcomers to the series will delight in Lambdin’s expert deployment of period detail; his mastery of the details of life on a 19th-century frigate; and the irresistible Captain Alan Lewrie himself.
A pleasant blend of light humor, drama and cracking historical naval action—another solid entry in the series.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-55185-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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