The history is everything here, so if you are a Scot or a Scotophile you will not be the least bit disappointed by the...
First fiction by New York financier Bruce, who unfolds the story of Scotland’s great medieval warrior and king Robert the Bruce (1274–1329).
The Scots, like the Irish, have a history that is dominated by a succession of wars, raids, routs, battles, plots, and uprisings against the English—most of which, unhappily, they lost. Robert the Bruce was one of their big-time winners. Descended from a Norman knight who crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror, and was repaid for his services with Scottish lands, Robert grew up in a Scotland that was dominated by the English crown despite (or perhaps because of) the great diversity of peoples (Norman, Saxon, Irish, Scottish, etc.) living within its borders. His tale is told here through the eyes of one David Crawford, a lad from Dumfries who became Robert’s page after witnessing him murder his erstwhile ally Red Comyn in 1306. David is also present when, not long after, Robert is crowned King of Scotland. Forced to flee to Ireland to evade the armies of England’s Edward I (to whom he had once sworn an oath of fealty), Robert returns to Scotland in 1307 and leads a successful attack on Edward’s forces at the Battle of Loudoun Hill. This marks a turning point in Scotland’s fortunes, for now the English are on the defensive, forced into hiding in remote castles, and Edward himself soon dies while fleeing the Scottish advance. His son Edward II tries to win back his father’s losses but is defeated even more decisively at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the English are finally forced to recognize Scotland’s independence in the Treaty of Northampton, which also accepts Robert’s claim to the throne of Scotland. The Bruce reigns unopposed for years thereafter and, after a lifetime of warfare, dies peacefully in his bed.
The history is everything here, so if you are a Scot or a Scotophile you will not be the least bit disappointed by the rather clunky narration and two-dimensional hagiography that prevails.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32396-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Truman Talley/St. Martin’s
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 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.
