A classic story gets new life in this thoughtful continuation.
Fahey offers an engaging sequel to Mark Twain’s 1882 novel, The Prince and the Pauper.
This follow-up extends Twain’s classic tale by envisioning protagonist Tom Canty as an adult,as he reminisces about his pivotal youthful experience more than 20 years before. What he recalls occurs after the events of the previous novel and follows Tom’s and Prince Edward’s lives during the Tudor era. The memoir-style narrative combines court politics with moral teachings to create an exciting coming-of-age story. Tom maintains his close bond with Edward, who becomes King Edward VI and faces royal responsibilities, although he yearns to experience childhood pleasures. Tom, in his role as the king’s ward and confidant, receives periodic invitations to visit the palace. In his everyday life, he works as an apprentice metalworker while enduring cruel treatment from his father, and he copes with the challenges of meager finances, along with social pressures. The very different worlds of royalty and poverty influence Tom as he develops his identity and perspective on life. The novel stands out for its outstanding character development and emotional depth, revealing how Tom evolves from a streetwise, unserious young man into a person of integrity. The struggles of the protagonist address the importance of staying true to oneself while also embracing forgiveness; meanwhile, his violent father’s influence is set against the importance of empathy. At the same time, young King Edward’s royal position isolates him from others, even as it provides him with great authority. The story integrates real-life historical figures, including Lady Jane Grey and the noble Seymour brothers, as well as returning fictional characters, such as Miles Hendon, to effectively establish its setting. Throughout, the work promotes kindness over cruelty and humility over ambition. Overall, Fahey’s novel is not only a loving tribute to Twain, but also a creative, independent narrative in its own right.
A classic story gets new life in this thoughtful continuation.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781597132763
Page Count: 238
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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