Only the mine resembles a living thing in this flat and utterly predictable tale.
An improbable romance brings a flashy New Yorker to coal country.
Opting for a fictional excavation of the territory he mined in three bestselling memoirs (Sky of Stone, 2001, etc.), Hickam introduces us to Song Hawkins, a beautiful, successful executive who runs her father’s business acquisitions with an iron hand. When she falls for West Virginia mine superintendent Cable Jordan during a meet-cute accident, however, her brain goes out the window. While on a romantic vacation she agrees to a quickie wedding, then the two return to their separate lives, hoping the future will resolve their lifestyle—and location—conflicts. Song tries first. Arriving in the mountain town of Highcoal, she’s appalled by the filth and apparent ignorance of the natives, who judge her “a pure little witch.” Song lasts four days before fleeing back to a ridiculously stereotyped New York. But Song’s heart belongs to Cable, and to help her get him back her father buys the mine’s controlling company, effectively putting her in charge. When an accident kills one of the few people she liked during her brief stay, Song returns to Highcoal and ends up wearing the red helmet of a mine trainee. If she’s going to save the floundering mine—and Cable’s job—she’s going to learn about it from the bottom up. In the real world, acquisitions expert Song would be highly unlikely to be involved with the day-to-day running of any company, but why let reality stand in the way? The pure and noble spirits of Highcoal have ruined New York for our spunky heroine, and it’s only a matter of time before she’s back in Cable’s arms, $200 blouses forgotten. Hickam’s caricatures do neither community justice.
Only the mine resembles a living thing in this flat and utterly predictable tale.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59554-214-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2007
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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