Winning first installment in a planned series, sure to be loved by fans of both mysteries and historical fiction.
A Separatist healer is determined to identify a killer, even if it places her under suspicion for incompetence—or even murder—in Sullivan’s (Deadly Diversion, 2009, etc.) historical mystery.
In the strict religious community of Zoar, Ohio, healer and midwife Adelaide Bechtmann is already flirting with disapproval when she goes to her favorite riverside spot to meditate. Instead of finding peace, she discovers the body of 16-year-old Johanna Appelgate floating in the river. When she pulls Johanna out of the water, Adelaide knows the young woman couldn’t have drowned, due to the absence of water in her lungs. The Separatists are all too willing to dismiss Johanna's death as a tragic accident, so Adelaide’s attempts to find her killer ignite controversy in the closed community. Even her beloved husband, Benjamin, fearing the loss of their comfortable life, refuses to support his wife’s investigation. Adelaide’s knowledge that the young woman was pregnant complicates the situation, and she’s anxious that the “remedy” she prescribed may have contributed to Johanna’s demise. Adelaide struggles to preserve the reputation of the deceased girl, even as her own deteriorates, and she can’t help but remember her husband’s closeness to Johanna. The conflicts between homeopathy and traditional medicine, marriage and celibacy and the eternal struggle for power among the male Separatists are all interwoven in the finely drawn murder mystery. Award-winning Sullivan brings the Zoar community to life, imbuing both real and fictional characters with laudable qualities as well as flaws, although antagonists Simon, Martin and Gerda are unrelentingly unsympathetic. While enough background information on the Separatists is provided to prevent reader confusion, Sullivan is a little stingy with her backstory, hinting at Adelaide’s prior tragic error without ever fully explaining it. Sullivan’s otherwise expertly crafted, perfectly paced novel suffers from comparatively underdeveloped relationships between Adelaide and those presumably closest to her—her husband Benjamin and sister Nellie.
Winning first installment in a planned series, sure to be loved by fans of both mysteries and historical fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1936214556
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Yesteryear Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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