A sprightly, winning historical novel about an unexpected romance—between a young woman and her own power.
Set in Gilded Age New England, Forbes’ debut novel follows teenage Penelope Stanton as she struggles through dubious attachments and financial ruin to become a suffragist leader.
“Imagine being sent to a party with a gun pointed at your head.” In 17-year-old Penelope’s case, the gun is metaphorical but a burden all the same—her father’s bank has suffered huge losses during the Panic of 1893, and her erstwhile fiance, Sam Haven, has cut her dead because of it. Penelope’s mother is determined to marry her off quickly to save the family’s fortunes. But instead of meeting an eligible bachelor, Penelope falls for rakish, married Edgar Daggers, whose stolen kisses turn her into “ice cream melting.” She has just enough willpower to resist becoming Edgar’s “personal secretary” in New York and flees to Boston with her best friend Lucinda, who wants to “join forces with the women who seek to improve the lives of women.” Through Lucinda, Penelope meets bloomer-wearing activist Verdana Jones. She shocks Verdana—and herself!—by cogently defending “Irrational Dress,” saying that “corsets and petticoats offer some structure...in a world that unravels as I speak.” Verdana thinks they’re a great team, and soon Penelope finds herself caught up in the fledgling women’s rights movement, even as the tempting Edgar Daggers comes back into her life. What will win out in the end—clandestine love or Penelope’s desire for independence? A delight from beginning to end, Forbes’ novel is full of funny, authentic moments, like poor Penelope’s ignominious accident when she tries to ride a bicycle in skirts, and striking metaphors (“an uncomfortable silence loomed...thick as soda bread”). Forbes paints the smallest details of fin de siècle society—the pop music, the interior décor, the “Beecham’s Pills” Penelope takes for a hangover. In fact, the book feels like it was written at the time, reading like an alternate, feminist take on The House of Mirth’s “well-born lady in reduced circumstances” with a decidedly happier ending.
A sprightly, winning historical novel about an unexpected romance—between a young woman and her own power.Pub Date: March 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946409-07-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Penmore Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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
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