While the plot sometimes lacks focus, this historical romance delivers compelling moments.
The fates of two families mesh with Ireland’s struggle for independence in this debut novel.
Courtland “Court” O’Rourke and Lacey de la Roche grew up in neighboring estates in southern Ireland. Now 20-year-old Court has just returned from cavorting in London to find Lacey, 10 years his junior, beating up a neighborhood bully and as furiously rambunctious as he left her. Court serves as an adoring yet protective older brother figure to Lacey, who’s being spoiled rotten by her wealthy widower father. But barely a year after his return, a scandal forces Court to enlist in the British army. He navigates military intrigue in India, falling into a tormented affair with the wife of his rival, while Lacey’s love of horses brings her into contact with the rakish stable worker Ransom “Ran” Longo. As Lacey matures into a headstrong and becoming young woman, Ran and a returned Court become rivals for her affections. Yet war looms—the two men become involved in an incident of death and betrayal during the 1916 Easter Rising, and Court struggles to recover after witnessing the frontline horrors of World War I. Ran, though he has a sexually charged relationship with Lacey, is never in a serious competition with Court. Court eventually ties the knot with Lacey and then struggles to balance his love of wife and family with his commitment to the dangerous project of Irish rebellion. Using several historical events and a large, socially diverse cast means that Sparrow must keep multiple plates spinning, and some plotlines and characters subsequently feel underdeveloped. Yet the author also finds emotional resonance, particularly when her players intersect with history—for example, when Lacey and Court argue over whether Irish freedom is worth dying for. The dialogue suffers from an overuse of exclamation points but is enjoyably saucy and sharp. Lacey is admirably self-possessed but would benefit from less reliance on the headstrong heroine “type” and more interior characterization. Some tone-deaf choices mar the sweet central romance, most notably when implying sexual tension between Court and an 11-year-old Lacey, and in portraying his brutal violence against his unstable mistress.
While the plot sometimes lacks focus, this historical romance delivers compelling moments.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9976851-1-4
Page Count: 282
Publisher: The Waxing Gibbous Press
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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