by Elizabeth Adler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004
Talky, contrived, sure to please the fans.
Setting: the south of France. Plot: see quiz below.
(A) Lonely woman finds passion amidst the lavender. (B) Matriarch plans to reunite her scattered family. (C) Nice tycoon with own jet longs for real love. (D) Colorful villagers drink wine, raise tasty food, speak in standard high-school French for the benefit of American characters who might not understand Provencal dialect. (E) All of the above. (Answer: not surprisingly, E.) Yes, it’s another sun-drenched, corny-as-can-be tale from the indefatigable Adler (Summer in Tuscany, 2002, etc.). Let’s begin . . . Still beautiful but feeling her years, Rafaella Marten casts a rueful glance at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror—why, she is old! And she’s alone, with no one but Haigh, her equally venerable butler, to care whether she lives or dies. Time to gather her far-flung descendants from every corner of the globe and see what happens. For the walls of Château des Roses Sauvage did once ring with children’s merry laughter, the gnarled old vines bore juicy grapes, love was in the air—though Rafaella’s deepest passion wasn’t for her much older, haute bourgeois husband—and every cliché in the book was new, so very new. Surely her family and friends will gather once more—from Shanghai, the Upper East Side, California. . . . Indeed they will, beginning with Franny Marten, a Santa Monica pet-care specialist who seems to have obtained her veterinary degree from a medical school (one of many howlers). Franny is wowed by widower Jake, the handsome master of a German shepherd she’s treated, owner of an international security company and of a Gulfstream (a few years old, as he points out modestly). Hey, are she and Jake related? No, but everyone else seems to be. And when they all get to Provence, will many, many family secrets be revealed in dull but dizzying complexity? Love is in the air again—c’est la vie. Or la guerre.
Talky, contrived, sure to please the fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-30811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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