A refreshingly original take on a familiar fictional genre.
A debut drama revolves around a slave plantation in mid-19th-century America.
Amana is born into slavery, and when she’s sold at the age of 17—not for the first time—she is shipped from her native Martinique to New Orleans: “Immediately after being sold, she was stuffed like a naked sardine in the bottom belly of the ship. She sensed that she’d never see her beautiful Martinique Island again.” Now she belongs to and works for Col. Trent Winters, an impressively wealthy proprietor of an expansive sugar cane plantation along the Mississippi River. Trent takes a shine to Amana and, frustrated by the sexual disinterest of his wife, Collette, makes her his lover, a dangerous move that potentially threatens his reputation and marriage. Meanwhile, Collette is still reeling emotionally from the death of her infant son. While she loves Trent dearly, she loses all interest in intimacy until that desire is rekindled by her sexually sophisticated friend Caroline Harrison. In a parallel storyline, Tabari, another of Trent’s slaves, is forced to take the blame for a terrible mistake made by Tolivar, the plantation manager, and decides it is better to flee than suffer an undeserved and likely savage punishment. But now he’s a fugitive slave, pursued by those ready to kill or capture him for a considerable reward. In his series opener, Erman vividly depicts the harsh circumstances slaves had to weather, the “brutish and dangerous” work as well as the inhuman treatment. The plot is an eclectic mix of serious historical fiction and emotional melodrama, with an emphasis on deceit and infidelity. The author’s prose is reliably lucid but not literary—the chief strength of the novel is a suspenseful plot populated by well-drawn characters, not the writing itself. Unfortunately, the book sometimes reads like an uncorrected first draft, riddled with sundry mistakes, including punctuation errors (“In Ruth’s room” she yelled. “Oh, please come quick”.). But Erman’s approach is still intriguingly innovative: the unlikely juxtaposition of incongruent parts, some grimly dark and others lightheartedly comic. Somehow, the author manages to concoct this fictional brew without one element diminishing the other.
A refreshingly original take on a familiar fictional genre.Pub Date: May 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-981051-45-8
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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