A tragic pretext allows relationships to blossom in James’s sometimes laborious novel.
With the sudden death of her sibling, a woman pitches in to take care of two orphaned children in this cozy, overstuffed domestic drama by English novelist James (Paradise House, not reviewed).
Felicity née Swift and her husband are killed in a car accident, leaving their two children, Carrie, 9, and Joel, 4, in the care of Felicity’s adored single sister, Harriet. A computer programmer in Oxford, Harriet has to quit her job and sacrifice her new boyfriend in order to move back home to Cheshire with her parents to care for the kids entrusted to her. It’s rough going at first, as the children are traumatized and often act out, and the grandparents, Bob and Eileen, are elderly and have issues of their own—Bob, a former salesman, enters into an affair to assuage his grief at the death of his beloved Felicity. Moreover, Harriet doesn’t really like children, and simply wants to get another job and house nearby. While probing her sister’s computer messages, Harriet finds that Felicity was involved in a hot affair with a man not her husband. In parallel complications, Will Hart moves across the street from Harriet in Cheshire, trying to put his life back on track after years of being divorced from the punishing Maxine, while maintaining sturdy relationships with his teenaged daughters, Gemma and Suzie. He becomes Harriet’s love interest, though there are others, and Will has to convince the much-younger Harriet that he is a worthy candidate by undergoing enormous grief of his own, first with Suzie’s pregnancy and abortion, then after her bizarre brain hemorrhage and death. Harriet explores transformed friendships with longtime neighbor brothers Miles and Dominic, the latter a Cambridge aesthete who loved Felicity dearly. The story tracks Harriet’s progress, both professional and emotional, as she finds a new job and new boyfriend, and in the end makes peace with the status quo.
A tragic pretext allows relationships to blossom in James’s sometimes laborious novel.Pub Date: April 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-75286-545-5
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Orion/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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