A bit heavy on political rhetoric, but passionate female characters deliver a valuable message.
The summer of 1901 in Denver sees the reunion of three sisters in this historical novel that hails the burgeoning independence of women.
It has been 11 years since Dr. Elizabeth “Lida” Clayton has seen her sisters, Mildred and Evangeline. When Lida married William after her graduation from Smith College, her mother was furious. William was a Northerner and his family manufactured guns used by the Union Army. During childhood, Lida was close to Mildred, who is three years older. But Mildred sided with their mother, creating a family schism. An unfortunate visit to the clan in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1890 resulted in a final blowout. Still, Lida, now a widow, remains in contact with her kid sister, Eva, who, at 25, is 15 years younger. Unexpectedly, Mildred and Eva accept an invitation to visit Lida and her two children, 15-year-old Sara Jane and 5-year-old Cole, in Denver, a hotbed of liberal thinking. Lida hopes this will lead to a reconciliation. But Mildred agreed to the trip as a ploy to help break up the developing romance between Eva and the man she is determined to marry, Bertram Dearman. Russell’s (All About Thailand, 2016, etc.) gentle narrative plays out over two months and, in alternating chapters, is narrated by the individual voices of Lida, Sara Jane, and Mildred (whom readers hear through her letters home and her journal entries). The literary device works well, giving full dimension to all three characters. This is part love story (romantic and familial) and part examination of the early days of women entering the professional arena, with a hefty measure of political discourse thrown into the mix. But the most intriguing underlying plotline tracks Mildred’s halting transformation from grim, frumpy temperance advocate to a lively participant in Lida’s progressive circle of accomplished women. Sara Jane provides much of the humor; her enthusiasm, innocence, and teenage angst are rather charming. And the author’s descriptions of a booming Denver at the turn of the 20th century re-create the excitement of a city moving into the future.
A bit heavy on political rhetoric, but passionate female characters deliver a valuable message.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73249-940-9
Page Count: 366
Publisher: Belles Histoires
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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