An unusual historical novel not soon forgotten.
Two outsiders and a monstrous dictator deal with tumultuous world events.
Beginning with the oft-rumored escape and survival of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, this novel twists and turns through some of the most significant historical events of the 20th century. Under the watchful eye of the sympathetic Count Carl Zurofsky, the girl, now known only as Anna, grows up in Romania. All the while, her country and birthright face upheaval and strife as history takes its course through world war, revolution, advancement, and tyranny. Both Anna and Carl are point-of-view characters, offering perspectives as outsiders, victims, and recipients of dramatic legacies. In fact, Carl’s family descends from Count Dracula, a history that stains him even as it inspires him to do good from the shadows. But since both Anna and Carl are somewhat removed from the centers of power they might otherwise occupy, the novel offers readers the perspective of none other than Stalin himself as he shapes history and is shaped by it in turn. The industrial backdrop of Russia’s five-year plans stands in stark contrast to the wild, pastoral beauty of Anna’s new surroundings. At the same time, her discovery of love and forgiveness is vastly different from Stalin’s struggles with power, corruption, and the fragile nonaggression pact he strikes with Germany on the eve of World War II. Logan (Time Is of the Essence, 2008, etc.) approaches this historical novel with a surprising poetic flair. The character perspectives switch back and forth frequently, although the engrossing narration does sometimes linger on one setting over the other when history demands a longer, more thorough treatment of a particular time or event. Meanwhile, the prose is flexible, readily shifting between traditional, effective dialogue and more verselike descriptions, making reading it a new experience. Fans of historical fiction may find the novel’s creative liberties a little fanciful or its short length insufficient to convey the temporal details common to the genre. But if readers keep an open mind, they’ll be treated to a lyrical, character-focused journey into events and figures rarely humanized in fiction.
An unusual historical novel not soon forgotten.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5094-0
Page Count: 196
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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