Especially for those late-night movie addicts who happily snuffle at WW II romances in which English men and women soldier on while grabbing at brief, heated hours of Love in the midst of War. In this sizable tale of passion, interrupted in Hong Kong and rewarded in England, Darrell (The Flight of the Flamingo, 1990, etc.) doesn't miss a heartbeat: `` `Then walk away,' she said softly, `walk away now and don't look back!' '' Australian doctor Rod Durman, unhappily married to silly, sexy Celeste, is at home in Hong Kong, where he hopes for a post as a specialist in tropical diseases. Lovely Sarah Channing, an aspiring pianist, has just arrived from England at the request of her banker father—who doesn't, however, seem that happy to see her. Rebelling against attempts to groom her for Hong Kong's elite English society, Sarah grinds away at her music and gives a concert. Rod is transfixed. Also hovering around Sarah is wastrel Alex Tennant, who's bored and running out of the ready. Before the Japanese capture Hong Kong (Alex saw invasion coming, but no one listened), Sarah will know the real reason her father sent for her and why Rod was turned down for the position he so badly wanted. Also, Rod and Sarah, welded in a deathless love, will split apart when Celeste announces she is pregnant. The Japanese invasion brings death and chaos (Darrell's reconstruction is convincing), as well as scary escapes. Alex shows his true heroic colors, taking Sarah and a buddy with him on a makeshift raft and then a four-month walk through enemy territory. Rod is taken prisoner. Pan to England. Sarah's two suitors have miraculously survived to participate in D-day. There will be a marriage for Sarah, but to whom? Veteran White Cliff hands will know in an instant. Old hat, but this stuff still has a devoted, albeit small, readership.
Pub Date: June 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-10956-3
Page Count: 512
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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