An ambitious, touching tale of a Granadian’s cruel coming-of-age.
A young woman in 1513 struggles to survive when the Spanish Inquisition reaches her hometown of Granada in Cotton’s (Barbarossa's Barb, 2017) Renaissance romance.
Seventeen-year-old Eva de Pazia’s life is full of secrets. Her father, Iago, tells her that her extra toe, a birth defect, proves her mother’s adultery with the devil; years of his abuse have left Eva terrified of men and marriage. Her closest companions in her unhappy home are her older brother, Elias, and her polydactyl cat, Tabita. A devout Christian who longs to enter a convent, Eva discovers that her once-Jewish father’s conversion wasn’t sincere. When the Inquisition comes to town, Eva turns her father in, believing that he’ll only be fined and exposed; instead, the Inquisitors seize her family’s home and assets, burn her father at the stake, accuse her brother of witchcraft, and give Eva to Moorish merchant Baltasar Cerra. Cerra forces her to live with his majordomo, the smallpox-scarred Baseel Alcazar, as his mistress—but Baseel never touches her. Instead, the two begin an uneasy friendship, playing music together on their guitarras and discussing religion; as Eva schemes to escape, she realizes that she may be falling in love. Cotton’s book is rich in detail, full of the food, furnishings, fashions, and faiths of the multiethnic milieu of 16th-century Granada, where many Christian “converts” continued to practice Judaism or Islam behind closed doors. The narration occasionally shifts to Tabita’s point of view, and its feline musings provide an often funny perspective on events—it’s sure that producing a “human kitten” will cheer Eva up, for instance, and it’s often confused by its mistress’s lack of interest in men. The frequent flashbacks are framed by sometimes-creaky segues: “She remembered the day she had been given Tabita—a day she would never forget”; “Eva was pulled back into the present.” For the most part, however, Eva’s plight and inner torment are compelling as she learns the truth about her family, herself, and her world.
An ambitious, touching tale of a Granadian’s cruel coming-of-age.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9787281-5-1
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Renaissance Re-imprints
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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