Midwestern pragmatism meets lusty debauchery in this lively tale of parenting in a small town.
A single mom takes on the hobgoblins of modern parenting: fertility clinics, ADHD medications, and standardized tests.
Microbiologist Rebecca Meer has just been made partner in the local fertility clinic, where Dr. Thad Sorenson’s slick bedside manner smooths over her blunt appraisals of a couple’s chances of conception. Yet underneath Rebecca’s professional lavender scrubs bubbles a disturbing sympathy for the Bandercooks, a sprawling, multigenerational family known mostly for their adventures in crime. Everyone pretty much avoids the boisterous Bandercooks, yet when Rusty Bandercook slips through the clinic’s back door to donate sperm, Rebecca can’t help but play along with the charade that women pine for his short, stocky genetic profile. Even worse, her own hormones surge at the sight of Rusty’s brother, Hayes, a chiseled lineman. Smoldering glances across the coffee counter at the local Fuel and Flee soon lead to sweaty afternoon romps at the seedy Fox Motel. Things are socially rickety but nothing Rebecca can’t handle, until her son, Mitchell—presumed by everyone to be a successful product of genetic engineering—gets a new fifth-grade teacher: Rebecca's ex-boyfriend Kevin Holts, who’s just returned to Ward after founding his own absurdly successful tech company in California. Rebecca suspects Kevin’s entrepreneurial tendencies—and shocking lack of educational credentials—mean he’s up to something. How did he twist Principal Calvin Chester around his little finger so fast? And why is he trying to sabotage the food drive? Bursting with well-drawn, quirky characters, Curtright’s debut novel is screamingly funny. From moms eager to medicate their academically challenged children into drooling, hyperfocused zombies to Calvin and Kevin’s new plan to raise test scores (a plan seemingly based on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) to Dr. Thad’s increasingly erratic behavior—Ward, Nebraska, is a Peyton Place of intrigue.
Midwestern pragmatism meets lusty debauchery in this lively tale of parenting in a small town.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5039-5058-0
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Little A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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