A fresh, fearless voice takes no prisoners.
A U.S. debut by British author Edwards-Jones skewers a provincial ex-pat community toughing it out amid the sensuous wilds of Tuscany.
For five years, 40-something Belinda Smith has owned and operated a fairly high-end B&B in the rarefied Tuscan valley of Val di Santa Caterina, near the town of Poggibonsi. A snobbish, petty divorcée from the “dull dormitory town” of Tilling, England, which she fled upon discovering her husband in bed with a neighbor, Belinda prides herself on her thoroughly affected Italian way of life. She spies on her ex-pat neighbors from her terrace perch, mangles Italian phrases, abuses the help as well as her small, neat daughter, Mary, 20, who has been fired from her London job and is spending the summer helping Mum for the busy tourist season. Belinda, in truth, is a misanthrope, can’t stand children or smokers anywhere near her place, weeds out the riff-raff by the nature of their Internet queries, steams labels off jam jars to deceive her guests, and spends most of her day drinking gallons of wine at the local watering-hole with fellow sodden ex-pats such as Manchester ladies’ underwear manufacturer Derek, his wife Barbara and alcohol-fueled novelist Howard Oxford, who has suffered writer’s block since his bestseller in the ’80s. She also offers entries from her chirpy diary and corny recipes from “Casa Mia.” When the neighboring Casa Padronale is purchased by an American, no less, Belinda instantly switches into battle action to subvert any attempt at a rival B&B. Owner Lauren, it turns out, made her money in hostile takeovers on Wall Street, and she chews up Belinda like a stick of gum—all while her handsome Yalie son, Kyle, courts the modest and dutiful Mary. Edwards-Jones has fashioned a near-bloody satirical stab at the sentimental Under the Tuscan Sun set, both American and English—with a result quite winning.
A fresh, fearless voice takes no prisoners.Pub Date: April 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-345-47880-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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