Birkelund (The Dressmaker, 2006) takes readers on an improbable journey in the Bernese Alps.
Jim Olsen is a Midwesterner, steady and reliable. When his fiancee dumps him after he’s been laid off, he takes his first vacation in years with an old friend, Ambrose. At a hikers’ “hutte,” they meet three sisters, Thalia, Helene, and Clio, who ask the men's help in finding their mother, Calliope (yes, they're named for muses, but they do not give Jim any inspiration other than to act irrationally), so they can return to their own busy lives. Lulled by wine and flirtation, “Jim didn’t think; he just said the words: ‘I’ll do it.’ ” He and Ambrose look for Calliope and then, even though it’s foolish to hike alone in a strange place, Jim leaves Ambrose to continue the search, despite having a new job waiting for him in New York. Calliope has eluded her powerful husband’s search helicopters all summer, but Jim finds her quickly, aided by a local man who has been helping her hide. Things get even more unlikely as the story zigzags toward its climax and coasts to a lackluster conclusion. Jim’s motivation is unclear, his disregard for hiking safety in a place and season when precaution is everything is unrealistic, and Calliope doesn’t do anything to convince readers of the value of his quest. The sisters’ appearances at the beginning and end of the book are fleeting and similarly unconvincing. The characters are worse than unrelatable, which can sometimes be interesting; they are unreal. A strange story that can’t transcend the weird improbabilities that propel it and the out-of-this-world behavior of the characters who populate it.
Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-243175-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a...
An unhappily married couple spends a year apart in Reid’s (Forever, Interrupted, 2013) novel about second chances.
When we meet Lauren, she and her husband, Ryan, are having a meltdown trying to find their car in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium after a game. Through a series of flashbacks, Lauren reveals how the two of them went from being inseparable to being insufferable in each other’s eyes—and in desperate need of a break. Both their courtship and their fights seem so ordinary—they met in college; he doesn’t like Greek food—that the most heartbreaking part of their pending separation is deciding who will get custody of their good-natured dog. It’s not until Ryan moves out that the juicy details emerge. Lauren surreptitiously logs into his email one day, in a fit of missing him, and discovers a bunch of emails to her that he had saved but not sent. Liberated by Ryan’s candor, Lauren saves her replies for him to find, and the two of them read each other’s unfiltered thoughts as they go about their separate lives. Neither character holds anything back, which makes the healing process more complex, and more compelling, than simply getting revenge or getting one’s groove back. Meanwhile, as Lauren spends more time with her family and friends, she explores the example set for her by her parents and learns that there are many ways to be happy. It’s never clear until the final pages whether living alone will bring Lauren and Ryan back together or force them apart forever. But when the year is up, the resolution is neither sappy nor cynical; it’s arrived at after an honest assessment of what each partner can’t live with and can’t live without.
Reid’s tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a committed relationship.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1284-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so,...
A tenacious reporter won’t let personal ties to a decades-old case stop her from finding the truth.
On the advice of her agent, Savannah Sentinel reporter and author Nikki Gillette is looking for fodder for her latest true-crime novel when she realizes that the perfect subject is about to be released from prison. Savannah’s notorious Blondell O’Henry has been locked up for some 20 years for the murder of her oldest daughter and Nikki’s childhood friend, Amity. Now that Blondell’s son Niall has recanted the testimony that put her away all those years ago, it looks as if she’ll be a free woman unless Nikki’s fiance, Detective Pierce Reed, can find a reason to keep her detained. Pierce and Nikki both work to discover what happened years ago at that cabin in the woods, though Pierce bridles at Nikki’s rather unconventional—all right, illegal—research methods. It seems to Nikki that the more she investigates, the more connections she discovers to her own family, beginning with the fact that her Uncle Alex was the original defense attorney on the case. But all of these uncomfortable connections make Nikki still more determined to learn the truth, even if she doesn’t like what that may mean.
You’ll need your own detective’s notebook to keep tabs on all the characters and connections on display here. Even so, Jackson (You Don’t Want to Know, 2012, etc.) shows a mastery of the true-crime thriller formula that will please fans.Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-5858-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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