Secrets lurk around every corner in this second book in Shute’s (After Midnight, 2014) ongoing historical-fiction series.
Alix Saint-Descoteaux is striving to build a winning thoroughbred stable in 1830s Britain, but the intrigues of life keep getting in the way. For example, in the series’ first volume, she ended up switching places with her scheming twin sister, Lily, who’d married Sir Nicholas Griffon. Complicating matters was the fact that Nicholas was in love with Alix, even after the subterfuge was revealed. In this installment, her uncle Quenton arrives, determined to move her and her horse-racing operation from the estate of the affable Sir Robert Gordon back to their ancestral home in France. Quenton isn’t concerned with what Alix or Nicholas or anyone else thinks of his plan. It’s not an easy venture, though, given the logistics of moving all the horses and attendants across the English Channel. But there’s another obstacle in the forms of Count Claude Rouget and his henchman, Drago, who have nefarious plans for Alix once she gets to France; they conspire to kidnap her and her champion horse during the ship’s unloading. The abduction goes awry, though, and Alix, atop her steed Midnight Star, finds herself lost in the French countryside. Overall, Shute has created a dense adventure. Even with the extensive backstory included here, it’s sometimes difficult to follow what came before; reading the first book will undoubtedly make this one read more smoothly. Also muddying the narrative is the fact seemingly everyone has a secret life: Quenton originally worked undercover as a horseman in Nicholas’ stables before revealing his noble lineage, for instance; Drago has a connection to Alix of which he’s unaware. Still, if the reader is willing to ride along with Shute’s onrushing narrative flow, it’s a rollicking read. Alix is a winning heroine, and Shute expertly leaves each character positioned for new experiences in the planned third volume.
An overly detailed but still thrilling European escapade.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63152-349-6
Page Count: 392
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: HISTORICAL FICTION | ROMANCE | HISTORICAL ROMANCE
Did you like this book?
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
44
GET IT
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Did you like this book?
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
GET IT
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
PROFILES
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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.
