Funnier and nastier than the two earlier volumes but still lukewarm and without much fizz.
Weldon (Long Live the King, 2013, etc.) completes her Edwardian trilogy, a lightweight amalgam of Downton Abbey and her own Upstairs Downstairs, as Lord and Lady Dilberne prepare for a visit from King Edward VII.
Three years have passed since the last installment. Edward, now king, has invited himself and his entourage, including his mistress, to the Dilberne estate for a hunting weekend, much to Lady Isobel Dilberne’s chagrin. Since Lord Robert is actively involved in the government now, not to mention with his new mistress, she is the one who is burdened with installing new plumbing and heating and completely redecorating their large but antiquated home. At the moment, son Arthur, the car enthusiast, is living at the estate with his wife, Minnie, and their two young sons. Arthur married Chicago-born Minnie for love, not the money she stands to inherit from her rich but crude Irish-American parents, and despite knowing she was an “experienced” bride. But, devoted to his auto manufacturing company that has yet to produce a commercially viable vehicle, Arthur now takes Minnie for granted. Lonely, homesick for the United States and oppressed by Lady Isobel’s interference in her children’s upbringing, Minnie assumes the worst when she walks in on Arthur with a female journalist in an apparent state of undress. Minnie decamps to stay with Arthur’s sister Rosina. Recently returned from Australia a wealthy widow, with her finished manuscript on the sexual habits of the Aborigines ready to publish, Rosina has joined the literary and sexually liberated set on Fleet Street, Weldon’s satiric swipe at the Bloomsbury crowd. Will Minnie succumb to the temptations of Fleet Street or reunite with Arthur? Will Rosina find passion with her editor’s sister? Will Lady Isobel become romantically involved with the handsome, much younger police inspector assigned to arrange security in preparation for the royal visit? Will that visit end in triumph or disaster or both?
Funnier and nastier than the two earlier volumes but still lukewarm and without much fizz.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-02802-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
A heart-wrenching tale of love enduring all things in the face of evil.
When Tom Hope, a practical sheep farmer in 1960s Australia, married Hannah Babel, a twice-widowed Auschwitz survivor many years his senior, not everyone thought it was a good idea.
But then again, Tom was easily swayed by women. His first wife, Trudy, had left him. Twice. The first time, she returned pregnant with another man’s child. The second time, she joined a Christian commune, saddling Tom with raising her son, Peter. Tom and Peter became an amicable pair, herding sheep, pruning trees, and fixing engines together. So when Trudy returned two years later to claim Peter, it nearly broke both Tom, who refused to live alone again, and Peter, who had no love for this mother he didn’t know, much less the Jesus Camp. Luckily, for Tom, Hannah comes to town, eager to open a bookstore. She hires Tom to help renovate the old shop building, and the two quickly become lovers. Although Hannah has survived the Holocaust, the memories of those she lost, including her son, Michael, haunt her. Meanwhile, unluckily for Peter, the pastor in charge of Jesus Camp is a controlling patriarch who believes heartily in thrashing the spirit of God into misbehaving boys, especially those who run away, like Peter. And although Tom would gladly fight to keep Peter, both the law and Hannah are against him, for Peter isn't Tom’s biological son, and Hannah can't bear to love a boy again, a boy who could be lost just as Michael was. Can Tom and Hannah find a way to bring Peter home? Hillman (The Boy in the Green Suit, 2008, etc.) crafts a compelling tale, toggling among Tom’s, Hannah’s, and Peter’s perspectives, as he delineates the stripping of each heart and draws together the ties that bind them together again.
A heart-wrenching tale of love enduring all things in the face of evil.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53592-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
To use the parlance of the period, a highly relevant retrospective.
Nantucket, not Woodstock, is the main attraction in Hilderbrand’s (Winter in Paradise, 2018, etc.) bittersweet nostalgia piece about the summer of 1969.
As is typical with Hilderbrand’s fiction, several members of a family have their says. Here, that family is the “stitched together” Foley-Levin clan, ruled over by the appropriately named matriarch, Exalta, aka Nonny, mother of Kate Levin. Exalta’s Nantucket house, All’s Fair, also appropriately named, is the main setting. Kate’s three older children, Blair, 24, Kirby, 20, and Tiger, 19, are products of her first marriage, to Wilder Foley, a war veteran, who shot himself. Second husband David Levin is the father of Jessie, who’s just turned 13. Tiger has been drafted and sends dispatches to Jessie from Vietnam. Kirby has been arrested twice while protesting the war in Boston. (Don’t tell Nonny!) Blair is married and pregnant; her MIT astrophysicist husband, Angus, is depressive, controlling, and deceitful—the unmelodramatic way Angus’ faults sneak up on both Blair and the reader is only one example of Hilderbrand’s firm grasp on real life. Many plot elements are specific to the year. Kirby is further rebelling by forgoing Nantucket for rival island Martha’s Vineyard—and a hotel job close to Chappaquiddick. Angus will be working at Mission Control for the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Kirby has difficult romantic encounters, first with her arresting officer, then with a black Harvard student whose mother has another reason, besides Kirby’s whiteness, to distrust her. Pick, grandson of Exalta’s caretaker, is planning to search for his hippie mother at Woodstock. Other complications seem very up-to-date: a country club tennis coach is a predator and pedophile. Anti-Semitism lurks beneath the club’s genteel veneer. Kate’s drinking has accelerated since Tiger’s deployment overseas. Exalta’s toughness is seemingly untempered by grandmotherly love. As always, Hilderbrand’s characters are utterly convincing and immediately draw us into their problems, from petty to grave. Sometimes, her densely packed tales seem to unravel toward the end. This is not one of those times.
To use the parlance of the period, a highly relevant retrospective.Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-42001-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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