A realistic, gripping portrayal of family, trust, and the value of self-improvement.
In Krantz’s novel, a protective mother violates a court order to go into hiding with her young daughter.
Manhattan-based interior designer Laura Ballard is ready to start a family. She’s 36, and, as her sister frankly puts it, biological clocks are “unforgiving.” She starts dating real estate developer Steven Carter and, not long after they move in together, she becomes pregnant. Laura certainly isn’t oblivious to Steven’s short temper and outbursts, but when his anger escalates into something more serious, the expectant mother leaves him and moves in with her parents (“She now had her own and her baby’s safety to consider”). She later gives birth to Amanda, whom Steven periodically takes away for scheduled visits, sometimes for only a half-hour at a time. By the time Amanda is toddler-age, Steven has warmed up to his daughter, though he’s not always patient with her and sometimes scares her when he yells. Laura has reason to suspect Steve has outright abused the girl, who’s reluctant to talk about a particular incident. The court doesn’t agree and grants Steven partial physical custody, so a worried Laura packs her things and heads north to Canada with Amanda. She keeps a low profile using an alias, paying with cash, and planning to homeschool her daughter. Meanwhile, Steven reports Amanda as a missing child. Around the same time, he realizes his propensity for anger has been nothing but trouble and seeks help from a therapist. Will that be enough to prove he’s a good father and that Amanda is safe with him? And what will happen when he offers a substantial reward for information about the girl’s whereabouts?
Krantz tackles an incendiary topic with discernment and authenticity. The story, which unfolds through Laura’s and Steven’s alternating narrative perspectives, isn’t black and white; readers get an early look at Steven’s side when one of Amanda’s overnight visits becomes a source of contention. Each of the parents is both sympathetic and flawed—while Laura undeniably breaks the law, her intentions aren’t malicious, and while Steven tries to be a good person and an even better father, he simply can’t control his temper. Laura’s consistently reliable parents (mother Rose seems to be the Ballards’ peacemaker, and Robert never hides his disdain for Steven) ground the story, representing the sturdy family unit that Laura and Steven don’t have. The rest of the supporting cast shines as well, from the other moms at Laura’s playgroup in Canada to Helen, Steven’s sister, the only one of his three siblings who still talks to him. The author’s skill at building characters is evident in her depiction of Amanda, who, for most of the book, is a toddler at that age when she says what she’s thinking and it’s often easy to see why she might be crying. But she’s simultaneously in her own world, and understanding what she says (or why she won’t say something) is a matter of interpretation. The final act takes a drastic but still believable turn, leading to a denouement that many readers won’t likely predict.
A realistic, gripping portrayal of family, trust, and the value of self-improvement.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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