Noble conforms to the conventions of contemporary women’s lit—the struggle to balance friends, career, romance and...
A bittersweet romance between two lonely 40-year-olds who were once teenage lovers.
For nine years, Susannah has lived an undemanding life with Douglas in London, but it’s missing a lot: passion, commitment, children and, Susannah is beginning to think, love. At her brother’s quaint village wedding, Susannah bumps into Rob, her teenage boyfriend, the man not even her first husband could compare to. After pleasantries they part, but memories of their relationship begin to haunt Susannah, and they exist in stark contrast to the everyday tedium she shares with Douglas. Worse than the domestic humdrum is that his three children are often in her care, but Douglas has made it clear that she is neither their mother nor friend, which leaves her as little more than housekeeper when they visit. Susannah is isolated in their home and so retreats to recollections of her youth and those almost forgotten dreams of true love and a houseful of children. She and Rob experienced the kind of teenage passion that is familiar but seems extraordinary, that perfect expression of love, blossoming sexuality and boundless hope. As she relives her first love, the other constant of her youth, best friend Amelia, is struck with cancer. It seems nothing is right, and then the unexpected changes Susannah’s life—Rob calls and asks to meet. Retired from the RAF and now living in London (his new wife Helena is stationed in Afghanistan), Rob and Susannah begin meeting casually to reminisce, seeking out quiet corners of museums to talk, but soon enough they are in love again. What to do? Do they deserve happiness more than Douglas and Helena? Are they meant to be? Love is finally tested when Helena returns from the war injured.
Noble conforms to the conventions of contemporary women’s lit—the struggle to balance friends, career, romance and babies—yet still delivers a poignant romance in which the ideals of young love confront the grimmer realities of an adult world.Pub Date: March 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4391-5485-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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