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TWILIGHT EMPRESS

A NOVEL OF IMPERIAL ROME

From the The Theodosian Women series

A fun, fast read with some history and feminist themes thrown in.

In her latest historical novel, Justice (Sword of the Gladiatrix, 2015, etc.) examines the life of little-known Roman empress Placidia.

In the fifth century, the Roman territory of Ravenna in northern Italy is sacked by the Goths. Young Princess Placidia is captured and held as a “guest” in the Goths’ royal court so that she can be used as a negotiation tool with the Romans. The author creates great tension as readers follow Placidia to the Gothic land, where she’s taken care of by Queen Gaatha, the wife of Alaric, king of the Goths. After a series of events that warms Placidia to the barbarian tribe, she finds herself falling for Ataulf, Gaatha’s brother, who takes control of the Goths after Alaric falls dead of a fever. Alaric’s and others’ demises come rather abruptly, but the book is an addictive read, as Justice chooses her key moments wisely, weaving a decadeslong narrative about Placidia’s layered life as she rises to eventual leadership. The opening scenes make clear that as a woman, Placidia’s bloodline is her most useful asset in ancient society. The author does a fine job of delicately underlining the limits of female governance during the period, creating sympathy for the heroine, whose only option is to rule through men. The sharp protagonist effectively navigates the politics surrounding her incapable brother, as well as conspirators, tragic deaths, and war, all while trying to save the nearly deflated Roman Empire. Justice shies away from in-depth political and geographical history, which keeps the novel from feeling like a historical lesson; however, at times, the text feels rushed, with myriad new names constantly appearing. If the author had allowed the various characters a little more room to breathe, it would have added more richness to the book. That said, the prose is tight and clean throughout, and the characters’ missions are always clear despite the complexities of the situations.

A fun, fast read with some history and feminist themes thrown in.

Pub Date: May 8, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-692-46051-1

Page Count: 392

Publisher: Raggedy Moon Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2017

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THE RUMOR

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Hilderbrand’s latest cautionary tale exposes the toxic—and hilarious—impact of gossip on even the most sophisticated of islands.

Eddie and Grace Pancik are known for their beautiful Nantucket home and grounds, financed with the profits from Eddie’s thriving real estate company (thriving before the crash of 2008, that is). Grace raises pedigreed hens and, with the help of hunky landscape architect Benton Coe, has achieved a lush paradise of fowl-friendly foliage. The Panciks’ teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks’ friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion’s share of Madeline’s last advance, in Eddie’s latest development. But Madeline, hard-pressed to come up with catalog copy, much less a new novel, is living in increasingly straightened circumstances, at least by Nantucket standards: she can only afford $2,000 per month on the apartment she rents in desperate hope that “a room of her own” will prime the creative pump. Construction on Eddie’s spec houses has stalled, thanks to the aforementioned crash. Grace, who has been nursing a crush on Benton for some time, gives in and a torrid affair ensues, which she ill-advisedly confides to Madeline after too many glasses of Screaming Eagle. With her agent and publisher dropping dire hints about clawing back her advance and Eddie “temporarily” unable to return the 50K, what’s a writer to do but to appropriate Grace’s adultery as fictional fodder? When Eddie is seen entering her apartment (to ask why she rented from a rival realtor), rumors spread about him and Madeline, and after the rival realtor sneaks a look at Madeline’s rough draft (which New York is hotly anticipating as “the Playboy Channel meets HGTV”), the island threatens to implode with prurient snark. No one is spared, not even Hilderbrand herself, “that other Nantucket novelist,” nor this magazine, “the notoriously cranky Kirkus.”

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-33452-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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