The Flensing Knife

Name: The Flensing Knife
Author: Elizabeth Douthart
ISBN: 978-0-692-44180-0

by Elizabeth Douthart ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 4, 2015

Though it’s difficult to invest in the heroine, this whaling ship narrative rights itself with meticulous research and...

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Life on a whaling ship is alternately difficult and delightful in Douthart’s debut novel chiefly narrated by one captain’s new wife.

The year is 1859, and the New England whaling town of Falmouth is home to many families with members at sea. Seventeen-year-old Celia Alden, who lives with her widowed mother and older brother, Edward, considers herself lucky not to be one of them. When Edward’s friend Capt. Caleb Jones begins to court her, Celia is quickly swept off her feet. Unable to stomach the idea of waiting behind while Caleb embarks on a whaling expedition, she decides to marry him—but only if he allows her to join him on his ship, Patience, for its three-year voyage. Once at sea, Celia quickly realizes the journey will be much more than she bargained for, as she endures both the dangers inherent to a whaling ship—from seasickness to shattered limbs—and the more intimate challenges involved with being the inexperienced wife of a relative stranger on a vessel with no privacy. Though the Patience’s voyage is captivatingly wrought, Celia’s characterization is shallow and sometimes unbelievable. Her quick about-face from apathy to love toward Caleb (and the evolution of their relationship thereafter) feels unearned, in part because she’s given few defining traits before their entanglement. Several supporting characters capture more interest, from Celia’s mother, a widow determined to keep her terminal illness hidden, to Domingo Arruda, a runaway slave now serving as third mate, to Capt. Jones, who questions the strict rules enacted by his Quaker father. It’s unfortunate that Celia herself lacks a stronger back story, as deeper characterization would have made her journey more compelling. Still, Douthart’s narrative, which benefits from extensive research into real-life ships’ logs and other primary source material, shines in the small details, like the “small silken buttons” on Celia’s wedding dress and the “two huge try pots” on the Patience, which stand waiting for the whale hunts to begin.

Though it’s difficult to invest in the heroine, this whaling ship narrative rights itself with meticulous research and attention to detail.

Pub Date: July 4, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-692-44180-0

Page Count: 422

Publisher: Lonely Cloud Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.