Bland, harmless New York City tableau from a chick-lit pro.
The highs, lows and heartaches of the residents of an upscale Manhattan apartment building, examined during the course of a few momentous months.
When her husband Ed is transferred, self-deprecating Brit Eve Gallagher finds herself both thrilled and terrified at the prospect of starting a new life in New York City. She initially lucks out by finding a gloriously sunny two-bedroom in a fabulous building on the Upper East Side, but discovers that making friends is a far more daunting task than decorating her new digs. Her neighbors are the usual assortment of types. Prematurely dowdy single librarian Charlotte dreams of a romance-novel Mr. Right, while promiscuous hottie Madison has her sights set on Jackson Grayling III (aka Trip), the wealthy young bachelor in 5A. He, meanwhile, yearns for athletic Emily Mikanowski, a natural beauty who works in television and shows little interest in dating anyone, let alone someone as unmotivated as Trip. Anxious stay-at-home mom Kim Kramer is focused on her spoiled toddler Avery to the point of alienating her stockbroker husband Jason, who secretly fancies stunning Rachael Schulman. With her successful career, three great kids and a country house, Rachael seems to have it all, until she finds out husband David is having an affair. A happily nested gay couple and a series of Cuban doormen round out the cast, but Eve makes her first real connection with 82-year-old Violet Wallace, a fellow Englishwoman who arrived in New York as a war bride in 1946. Violet helps ease Eve’s homesickness, while revealing the mysteries of her past. She also provides invaluable support when Eve becomes pregnant with her first child and things do not go as planned. Lacking in edge and unapologetically sincere, Noble’s latest (Things I Want My Daughter to Know, 2008, etc.) benefits from a winning and vulnerable Everywoman in Eve, though the rest of her characters are a bit of a snooze.
Bland, harmless New York City tableau from a chick-lit pro.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-5483-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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