A dazzling war tale; fast-paced, gut-wrenching, and laced with uncertainty.
As World War II threatens to tear his country apart, a young Dutchman sails for America in this debut novel.
Emile van Driel twists the dials on his old radio to hear the “volume and hysteria” of an “upstart leader of the fledgling Nationalist Socialist Party” letting loose a volley of threats. A simple farmer from rural Netherlands, he senses darkness on the horizon and begins to prepare accordingly. Despite some skepticism from his wife, Helme, he arranges for their son, Johan, to set sail for the safety of America. Johan is 20 years old when he boards the Swift as a crew member—“young and inexperienced” for his age. His first days at sea prove a baptism by fire. Hampered by seasickness and lampooned by his crewmates, he learns that he must fight to make his mark on the world. During shore leave in Vancouver, he sees a sailor get his throat cut. Later, after finding bar work in New York, Johan shows his mettle by defending a tavern girl who has been set upon by a lecherous sea captain. The young man grows strong bodied and savvy as his journey progresses. Leaving the city, he secures a job working on an Amish farm until complications require him to again move on. His wanderings lead him across the United States before finding his true love, Emma van der Poole, his future wife, with whom he sets sail for Australia. As the momentum of World War II intensifies, Johan finds himself joining the U.S. Marines, taking his first tour of duty in Japan before returning to Europe. The unexpected introduction of a German sniper, Gunther Klause, adds a wicked twist to the narrative. Podbury is a skilled and intuitive writer. At times, his descriptions are painfully visceral: “The marine beside him screamed hideously as a burst of automatic fire laced his chest and the water by his side, effectively cutting him in half, and he fell forward into the breakers, his severed arteries bloodying the water around his still twitching corpse.” Yet the author is equally adept when penning Johan’s poignant letters home: “My dearest wife, I fear for my soul, if a man’s soul is what he truly is.” This is a detailed and emotionally sensitive account of a solitary man’s coming-of-age and his fight to stay alive for his family that should appeal to fans of war fiction and romance alike.
A dazzling war tale; fast-paced, gut-wrenching, and laced with uncertainty.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-8453-2
Page Count: 454
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
bookshelf
