War in 19th-century India at the height of the Raj and its gore and glory is background for a thorny romance involving two miserably wedded lovers. Another romantic yet spiny adventure by the author (a.k.a. Elizabeth Darrell) of Some Far Elusive Dawn (1991), etc. Elizabeth Delacourt, married to handsome Lieutenant William, is angry when her soldier husband takes off for India without her. It's not that Elizabeth misses William, or his thickheaded insistence that she be a mouselike, submissive wife without a thought in her head, but, rather, that she misses adventure. Besides, her in-laws are crashing bores. But then in England Elizabeth meets Captain John Stravenham, veteran of the Indian wars. There's instant mutual attraction—and a misunderstanding. Learning that Elizabeth, stirred and muzzy-headed, is not a widow (as she's led him to believe), John hies back to action in India; and Elizabeth, horrified by John's hurt, is off to India, too, unbeknownst to John. Of course, John (stewing in bitterness), William (furious), and Elizabeth (scared but exhilarated by the strange land and army life) will be together in camp. Before the last long march and battle, there'll be: the loss of a popular officer whose brother blames John; attempts by a tiny handful of women to aid the common soldier and his family; a bout of cholera; and, finally, the reality of war as John leads a ``tremendous military snake across the wide starlit plain...This was life...Here was true fulfillment.'' Liberated Elizabeth and life-scarred John will, naturally, find sweet rewards in a savage time. Like Drummond's others: a journeyman romance with some bright and gritty byways.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05973-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
Detectives, doctors, and dastardly scoundrels abound in this fascinating historical novel.
Luring women with the false promise of a safe, albeit illegal, abortion, a serial killer is on the loose in 1880s New York City.
In this sequel to The Gilded Hour (2015), Donati returns to a time when female doctors were viewed with surprise if not outright hostility. Cousins Anna and Sophie Savard have earned their professional medical training, both turning to practice primarily on women. Grieving the recent death of her attorney husband, Cap, from tuberculosis, Sophie plans to use her inheritance to establish scholarships and a welcoming home for women pursuing medical studies. Happily married to Jack Mezzanotte, a detective investigating the killings with his partner, Oscar Maroney, Anna is a highly accomplished surgeon, but they have just lost custody of the children they were fostering, children the church wants raised by Catholics. The sprawling Savard family blends multiple ethnicities, including Italian, Mohawk, and African American, and Donati crafts strong female characters who draw upon the wisdom of their ancestors to transcend the slings and arrows of petty racism and sexism. She juxtaposes these women, thriving on the energies of the zeitgeist advancing women’s rights, with the villains, who sink into the muck of dubious morality crusades, such as the anti-contraception and anti-abortion campaigns of Anthony Comstock and the xenophobic orphanage system run by the Roman Catholic Church. Through Sophie’s and Anna’s work, Donati sketches in the historical backdrop of reproductive challenges in late-19th-century America: Women dying in childbirth, women dying to avoid childbirth, women and babies mangled by medical quacks, and children drugged to the point of death just to keep peace in the nursery. The wounds inflicted by the serial killer caused prolonged, severely painful deaths, suggesting not inept but malicious intent. And as the Drs. Savard assist Jack and Oscar in their investigation, another woman goes missing.
Detectives, doctors, and dastardly scoundrels abound in this fascinating historical novel.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-425-27182-7
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
The Dukes of Hazzard written as if it were a homiletic drama.
An irritatingly hokey, inept attempt to invade Fannie Flagg territory.
Ave Maria Mulligan, a pharmacist in Big Stone Gap, discovers she has a long-lost Italian father, saves Elizabeth Taylor from choking on a chicken wing, and follows her friend Iva Lou's advice and gets her a workingman. It's 1978, and Ave Maria's mother has passed away, leaving a letter stating that mean old Fred Mulligan wasn't her daughter’s real father. It's unclear why Mama never told anyone, but Ave Maria's father is Mario Barbari, a boy she knew back in Bergamo. Iva Lou Wade—a promiscuous, worldly-wise woman who calls everyone “honey-o” or “sweetie-o”—drives the Bookmobile. She finds a book on Bergamo that just happens to have a picture of Mario. Ave Maria, who ruminates incessantly, is reeling from all this news and, in a truly bizarre move, sells her pharmacy—for one dollar—to Pearl Grimes, a poor, overweight teenaged girl she'd recently hired. Meanwhile, Ave Maria lusts after the high-school band director, who initially spurns her. She, in turn, is the object of Jack Mac's affection, though he proposed to someone else on stage on the closing night of the Outdoor Drama, which Ave Maria directs. Ave Maria is also a member of the rescue squad and, when Elizabeth Taylor comes to town with her husband, senatorial candidate John Warner, to attend a high-school football game, she helps the choking actress get to the hospital. To add insult to cornball, the blushing, bumbling Jack Mac woos a surprised Ave Maria by selling his precious pickup truck to pay for her father and aunts to come to America. The couple will wed and name their child Fiametta Bluebell. Trigiani lacks subtlety, and the fun is lost in the desire to be taken seriously.
The Dukes of Hazzard written as if it were a homiletic drama.Pub Date: April 4, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50403-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2000
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