An unusual historical romance set in two time periods.
McCarthy’s historical novel follows a young doctor as she investigates the life of a German soldier and his lost love.
In 2005, Sofia Rossi is an orthopedist working for Doctors Without Borders. During a hiatus, she travels to Italy to care for her Aunt Elena and visit other family members. She also helps Teresa Sartoni of Juliet’s Club in Verona respond to letters addressed to the tragic fictional character from William Shakespeare’s play; the correspondents, mostly “hapless lovers” writing as Romeo, express their wishes in the missives. After the death of her true love, Claude, Sofia finds herself uninterested in romance; however, she becomes fascinated by a story, in one of the letters, of German soldier and chauffeur Lukas Müller, who was forced to join the military during World War II, and a teenager named Anna Bissoli, whom fellow teen Lukas sought to save during the conflict. In this well-plotted novel, McCarthy alternates Lukas’ past and Sofia’s present perspectives over time. The plot remains intriguing as new characters are introduced and family conflicts ensue. With some beautiful descriptions, McCarthy ably portrays how World War II affected the lives of civilians, and families in particular. One fine example is when Lukas waits at the train station: “everywhere, bundles of personal possessions, some in battered suitcases, some in cardboard boxes held together with pieces of string or leather belts. And then there were the beggars, the petty thieves, the homeless and vagabonds, the civilians and former soldiers, who had been maimed during the war: everyone marked by wounds of some kind, physical and mental.” The work also excels at portraying familial dynamics over generations. Although there are moments when Lukas’ portion becomes a bit ambiguous, due to its slow, meandering style, the relationships within it make for an engaging read. Readers will find themselves invested in what happens to the characters.
An unusual historical romance set in two time periods.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781798738375
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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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