Fans of writers from Maeve Binchy to Alice McDermott to J. Courtney Sullivan will relish this big-hearted novel.
A family saga that marries time-tested tropes with distinctly modern dilemmas.
The Ryans have gathered for Thanksgiving on Long Island’s North Fork, and in spite of the three generations at the table, there’s a hole: Everyone misses Topher, whose death by suicide as a young adult they all blame on a 25-years-past boating tragedy involving a neighbor’s son. Topher’s parents, Nora and Robert; his siblings, Alice, Cait, and Maggie; his niece and nephews; his best friend, Luke Larkin—all remain devastated by the loss, and all have their own immediate problems, too. Nora, who grew up in a harsh Irish orphanage, clings to her Catholic faith; Robert tries and fails to keep up their large coastal home, known as the Folly. Scenes past and present exude authenticity, from teenagers pounding beers on a dock to the family vegan scarfing down a huge slice of apple pie with ice cream, on to Robert’s shooting of a rabid raccoon, his grandchildren looking on in horror. The family daughters are dutiful (Alice), distracted (Cait), and discombobulated (Maggie), each hiding something important from the rest of the family for good reasons, but with terrible timing about what they tell to whom, when. They constantly speculate on what the others think and know and suspect as their perspectives hold sway over different chapters. Occasionally these different views wind up confusing: Is Cait’s son Finn older than his brother James? What happened to the Larkins? Who was Maggie’s old flame Sarah again? and so on. However, if the windup is a bit chaotic, the revelations are worth it, and show that even the most rigid members of a family can learn to bend when deep love and affection exist. An “Irish goodbye” refers to slipping out of a party early without thanks or leave-taking. O’Neill allows her entire cast of characters to exit on a beautiful, yet unresolved, note.
Fans of writers from Maeve Binchy to Alice McDermott to J. Courtney Sullivan will relish this big-hearted novel.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781250408150
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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