A clever concept delivered in a quick beach read; plenty of amusing canine antics for those who love dogs and their slightly...
A young woman decides to open a bakery where humans can sip coffee while their dogs indulge in the specialty of the day.
Millie Whitfield is walking her two rescue shelties, Luke and Annie, when she sees that Cristopher’s Ice Cream and Cookie Shoppe in Houndsville has suddenly closed and the building is up for sale. It is the perfect location for Millie to fulfill her dream of opening a dog bakery. Now she just needs her husband, Carl, to buy the old farmhouse—plus she must assemble a team to work with her. Fortunately, she has hometown friends to call on. Carolyn will help with management, and MaryEllen (the live-in girlfriend of Millie’s older brother, Bradley) will do the baking. Longtime friend Todd fills out the crew. After almost losing the space to the owner of Miss Annabel’s Tea and Coffee Emporium, Millie finally opens the bakery. But Annabel Larson continues to try to sabotage the enterprise, including reporting supposed violations to the health department. When Millie is not spending time running the bakery—including throwing a birthday party for Luke, complete with a dog-safe cake—she is busy playing matchmaker for her customers and friends and organizing an emergency fundraising ball to cover medical costs for 87 shelties rescued from a backyard breeder. Stylistically, Gilman’s (Mollie’s Tail, 2013) prose is casual and too often cutesy—the shops of Houndsville have annoyingly alliterative names (Julie’s Jewels; Frannie’s Flowers; Bridget’s Bookstop), and Millie is always in need of one of Carl’s “squishy hugs.” Character development is minimal, but with the exception of Annabel, the cast—both human and furry—makes for pleasant company. And it’s fun to watch the team devise unique, dog-friendly recipes for biscuits, pupcakes, and muffins. More importantly, the primary message of the breezy narrative—to urge the adoption of rescue dogs—is solidly communicated without sounding too preachy.
A clever concept delivered in a quick beach read; plenty of amusing canine antics for those who love dogs and their slightly quirky humans.Pub Date: May 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4575-6188-7
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one...
An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women—who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco—and their very American 30-ish daughters.
Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters "as from another shore," and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths—the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times—will not take root. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to "give [my daughter] my spirit." The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and "feasted" on scraps. Should we, thought Suyuan, "wait for death or choose our own happiness?" Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is "strong. . .like the wind"; another witnesses the suicide of her mother; and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. One recognizes fate but survives. But what of the American daughters—in turn grieved, furious, exasperated, amused ("You can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up")? The daughters, in their confessional chapters, have attempted childhood rebellions—like the young chess champion; ever on maternal display, who learned that wiles of the chessboard did not apply when opposing Mother, who had warned her: "Strongest wind cannot be seen." Other daughters—in adulthood, in crises, and drifting or upscale life-styles—tilt with mothers, one of whom wonders: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?"
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one that matches the vigor and sensitivity of Maxine Hong Kingston (The Warrior Woman, 1976; China Men, 1980) in her tributes to the abundant heritage of Chinese-Americans.Pub Date: March 22, 1989
ISBN: 0143038095
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Connelly takes a break from his Harry Bosch police novels (The Last Coyote, p. 328, etc.) for something even more intense: a reporter's single-minded pursuit of the serial killer who murdered his twin. Even his buddies in the Denver PD thought Sean McEvoy's shooting in the backseat of his car looked like a classic cop suicide, right clown to the motive: his despondency over his failure to clear the murder of a University of Denver student. But as Sean's twin brother, Jack, of the Rocky Mountain News, notices tiny clues that marked Sean's death as murder, his suspicions about the dying message Sean scrawled inside his fogged windshield—"Out of space. Out of time"—alert him to a series of eerily similar killings stretching from Sarasota to Albuquerque. The pattern, Jack realizes, involves two sets of murders: a series of sex killings of children, and then the executions (duly camouflaged as suicides) of the investigating police officers. Armed with what he's dug up, Jack heads off to Washington, to the Law Enforcement Foundation and the FBI. The real fireworks begin as Jack trades his official silence for an inside role in the investigation, only to find himself shut out of both the case and the story. From then on in, Jack, falling hard for Rachel Walling, the FBI agent in charge of the case, rides his Bureau connections like a bucking bronco—even as one William Gladden, a pedophile picked up on a low-level charge in Santa Monica, schemes to make bail before the police can run his prints through the national computer, then waits with sick patience for his chance at his next victim. The long-awaited confrontation between Jack and Gladden comes at an LA video store; but even afterward, Jack's left with devastating questions about the case. Connelly wrings suspense out of every possible aspect of Jack's obsessive hunt for his brother's killer. Prepare to be played like a violin.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-316-15398-2
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
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