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SILVER

Name: SILVER
Author: Edward Chupack
ISBN: 978-0-312-37365-8

MY OWN TALE AS WRITTEN BY ME WITH A GOODLY AMOUNT OF MURDER

by Edward Chupack ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008

Makes the pirate world come alive, but purists may be put off by the author’s rearrangement of details from the original...

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Chicago-based attorney Chupack expands the story of one of Robert Louis Stevenson's most memorable characters—Long John Silver—in this Treasure Island spinoff told from the pirate’s perspective.

Silver relays the story of his life to an unnamed acquaintance and a boy he calls “Mullet” while held captive on his own ship, en route to England, where he will be hanged. He describes his boyhood as a motherless street urchin taken under the wing of a homeless blind man. Eventually finding his way into the employ of a larcenous tavern keeper, the future pirate meets one of the greatest pirates of the day—Black John—and schemes to join his crew. Black John, who gives the lad his memorable name, commands the Linda Maria, a ship coveted by Silver and filled to the brim with every sort of dastardly pirate. Silver’s lifelong pursuit of an elusive treasure is also chronicled. The details of the treasure are contained in a cryptic set of clues carried in an old Bible owned by Edward Peach. Peach, who is high-born, escapes the massacre of his family with the Bible as his only keepsake and shares the mysterious ciphers contained in the book with Silver. In his pursuit of riches, Silver encounters ship after ship—and all passengers go to their doom. Only one, a woman named Mary from the Carolinas, catches Silver’s fancy. In an uncharacteristically generous move, Silver helps save her and her sister, Evangeline, from death. Chupack laces his tale with clues as to the famed treasure's nature and whereabouts and salts his language with pirate idiom.

Makes the pirate world come alive, but purists may be put off by the author’s rearrangement of details from the original story.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-312-37365-8

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.