Artfully meshes the educational with the sensational.
A tale of two models, decades apart, and the Frick museum.
The latest in Davis’ series celebrating New York City landmarks (following The Lions of Fifth Avenue, 2020) features not only the Frick Collection, but several exemplars of public art, all images of the same Gilded Age model. By 1919, Lillian Carter, under the name Angelica, has earned a degree of fame as the model for sculptures gracing the New York Public Library, the Plaza Hotel, and many other venues. Groundlessly suspected of murder, Lillian plans to flee New York for Hollywood and a movie career. Instead, a series of improbable events leads her to steel magnate Henry Clay Frick’s mansion, where she’s hired as personal secretary to Miss Helen, Frick’s spinster daughter. In 1966, Veronica Weber, an ingénue model from a working-class background in London, lands a potentially life-altering assignment—a Vogue photo shoot at the Frick mansion–turned-museum. But after rebelling at the sexism on set, Veronica is left behind, stranded in the Frick when a blizzard and a blackout descend simultaneously on the city. In the alternating 1919 timeline, Frick offers Lillian, who has quickly become a savvy family retainer, a bonus if she can help marry Helen off to Richard Danforth, a reluctant suitor. Abetted by Joshua Lawrence, a Frick intern, Veronica continues a scavenger hunt, left unfinished in 1919, devised by Helen to educate Danforth about the Frick masterpieces. Overshadowing the action is the horrific death of Helen’s older sister and the brutality of Frick himself, who lays waste to his own family alongside other victims of his greed. Davis skillfully weaves these undercurrents into her parallel stories, which coalesce in a suspenseful search for a (fictitious) Frick heirloom: the pink Magnolia diamond. The motivations of the two protagonists are thin: Neither seems to have ambitions that can’t be easily derailed by a man. Although her privilege certainly renders her more autonomous, Helen emerges as the true heroine here.
Artfully meshes the educational with the sensational.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18401-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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