by Elizabeth Darrell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1996
With her usual sensitivity, clarity, and quiet dignity, Darrell (Concerto, 1994, etc.), who also writes as Emma Drummond, turns her unstinting—if romantically inclined—eye on three post- WW II lives. It's 1946, and the war is finally over in England, but the strife has just begun for the surviving members of the Sheridan family: Marion, widow of Sir Christopher, and their two grown children, David and Vesta. Marion is living alone in Tarrant Royal, facing the disdain of her children, who worshipped their father but underestimate the toll it took on Marion to stay so long with a man who never loved her. David, a pilot, is haunted by nightmares of his torture at the hands of the enemy; a trip to Singapore to determine once and for all whether Su Lim (the Chinese woman he married on a whim just before the war) is still alive confirms his suspicions: She's dead, but to his shock has left behind two children, twin girls, fathered by him. Racked by guilt, he leaves them behind in their village, but calls off his impending marriage to childhood sweetheart Pat without telling her why. Meanwhile, Vesta, an artist who paints gripping war scenes, wants desperately to keep her independence and succeed in her profession, but she's also fallen in love with a dashing, noncommittal American war correspondent, Brad Holland. When Brad can't settle down, she takes up with Paul Gaynor, a dependable if unexciting military man. Surprises unfold: Sir Christopher's love child surfaces; Marion finally meets a man who appreciates her; and David and Vesta realize the love they've been seeking is waiting for them right at home. Over time, and with much suffering, all three Sheridans will eventually face the aftermath of war head-on, piecing together their lives—as individuals and as a family—in a new world. A well-researched, unusually intense—and seldom told—story of life after war.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14066-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
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by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
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Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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