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THE SHARP TEETH OF LOVE

Name: THE SHARP TEETH OF LOVE
Author: Doris Betts
ISBN: 0-679-45072-6

by Doris Betts ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 1997

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An appealing story about love between a recovering anorexic and a deaf would-be pastor barely survives veteran novelist Betts's (Souls Raised From the Dead, 1994, etc.) awkward flirtation with significance as she introduces a ghost and the battle at Waco. Luna Stone and Steve Grier leave North Carolina in April 1993 for California, where Steve has been offered a teaching job. The two plan to marry along the way. But as the journey begins, Luna, an artist who had been hospitalized in college for depression and anorexia, begins to have second thoughts. She has been supporting the two of them by doing medical illustrations while Steve finishes his dissertation, but she's beginning to realize that Steve is stingy and selfish. She's also obsessed with the FBI's attack on Koresh's compound and the consequent conflagration. And so Luna leaves Steve in Reno, takes her van, and heads to the nearby mountains to camp and think. An Army brat whose life has been regimented by a domineering father, she's also a lapsed Catholic who can't quite forget her religion. During the day she hikes trails and thinks about her life; at night she's visited both by a ghost and by a starving young boy. The ghost is Tamsen Donner, a member of the infamous Donner Party, whose survivors made it through the winter by eating the dead. The young boy, whom Luna befriends, is Sam, who'd been sold to—and has escaped from—a child-porn ring. When Sam and Luna move on to another camp, they meet Paul, whose plans to be a Lutheran minister have been disrupted by an accident that has left him deaf. A day-trip to Reno goes terribly wrong when Sam is kidnapped, but Luna and Paul eventually rescue him. Their love acknowledged, they are free to move forward, with Sam in tow. A pair of twentysomething lovers refreshingly reach out beyond themselves to act like grown-ups in a novel that succeeds in spite of itself.

Pub Date: May 9, 1997

ISBN: 0-679-45072-6

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE COLORS OF US

by Karen Katz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8

Page Count: 28

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE TRAIL TO BUDDHA'S MIRROR

by Don Winslow ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 1992

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Neal Carey, the Smollett-loving specialist in finding people who don't want to be found (A Cool Breeze on the Underground, 1990), is hustled off to San Francisco to drag AWOL pesticide expert Robert Pendleton away from china doll Li Lan and back to paternal corporation AgriTech. But the fireworks that erupt after Neal's found the happy couple make him wonder whether gorgeous, talented painter Li Lan isn't actually a Communist agent who's trying to woo Pendleton back to her country; by the time Neal has been taken prisoner in the Walled City of Hong Kong, he's already gotten the Communists, the CIA, and AgriTech ready to burn him. And more trouble lies ahead, as shadowy patriarch Xao Xiyang and his treacherous underling Peng plot against each other to manipulate Neal into exposing Pendleton and Li Lan in a climax that still has room for a surprise or two. Despite Neal's inveterate habit of wising off in his mind's mouth, this is a sturdy two evenings' worth of entertainment.