A romantic tale about the restorative potential of travel that is both emotionally involving and predictable.
An American woman travels to Rome to find her birth mother and ends up entangled in a complicated romance.
Julia Ramos, a Texas native, takes her first trip to Europe in order to find the Italian woman who put her up for adoption when she was a baby. After landing in Rome, she sees a homeless man abusing a small dog, and before she can stop herself, she grabs the puppy and makes a run for it. She races across an open square, darts in front of an oncoming car, and the driver, British architect Daniel Stafford, narrowly avoids running her over. Even as he admonishes her for her reckless behavior, the chemistry between the pair is apparent. As luck would have it, Julia bumps into Daniel multiple times after the near accident, and he offers to help with the search for her mother by driving her and the puppy toward his sister’s house in Tuscany. Julia’s hunt for her mother grows ever more complicated, and she ends up staying with Daniel at his sister’s Tuscan home. Romance ensues, and both worry the relationship will crash, yet neither seems ready to give up. Via straightforward prose, the author presents believable characters with complex interior lives. As the storyline toggles between Daniel’s and Julia’s points of view, Mikalsen (Wrapped in the Stars, 2018) portrays two young adults who are floundering, each struggling to find meaning in the daily lives they’ve been living. As they attempt to find their places, personally and professionally, the result is a compelling tale of two people muddling their way through self-discovery. Although many secondary characters play to type, the novel abounds with well-researched details, ranging from architectural landmarks and topographical details to the cultural norms for ordering pizza. Despite the predictability of the plotline, the evocative emotional connection between the main characters makes the read worthwhile.
A romantic tale about the restorative potential of travel that is both emotionally involving and predictable.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2739-6
Page Count: 342
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2019
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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