An often charming, if lightweight, tale with memorable characters and a tender love story.
When a Turkish immigrant and a Dutch psychiatrist fall in love, a devastating diagnosis threatens to separate them forever in Field’s (Lattices of Love, 2015, etc.) latest romance.
On a cold winter night in western New York, psychiatrist Pieter Bentinck heads toward a liquor store looking for a bottle of premium Dutch gin for his mentor, Dr. Carl Ahren. There, he encounters a woman whose striking beauty leaves him breathless. Upon arriving at Carl’s home, Pieter discovers that the mysterious woman frequently stays there. Her name is Janan Coers, and Carl’s family adopted her after she was orphaned by an earthquake in her native Turkey. Pieter and Janan have both given up on finding love, but they feel a connection to each other that’s soon tested when Pieter is diagnosed with leukemia. On the eve of his return to Amsterdam, they spend an evening together, during which Pieter tempts Janan with eight tantalizing kisses. Later, she faces a dilemma when she learns she’s pregnant with twins. When Carl decides to return to his home country, he makes an offer that would provide security for Janan and the babies. But her choice could put a future with Pieter at risk. Field’s fast-paced romance features a compelling central love story and well-developed protagonists; their relationship develops quickly but never seems forced or contrived. But a promising subplot involving one of the supporting characters needs more detail. Although Carl drives much of the narrative, his story is less successful; he’s a Dutch Jew who was sent to America prior to the outbreak of World War II, and he’s struggling to reclaim his family’s home and fortune and concerned about the motives of his great-nephew, Arnold. However, it’s unclear whether Arnold truly has ulterior motives, as he’s only mentioned in passing.
An often charming, if lightweight, tale with memorable characters and a tender love story.Pub Date: March 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68921-077-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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