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Bear Hug

Name: Bear Hug
Author: J. Wes Watson
ISBN: 978-1-4797-1232-8

BUYING TIME

by J. Wes Watson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2012

While swiftly paced with vivid characters, this saga set in August 1945 lacks realistic dialogue.

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The world’s most powerful countries clash in the final days of World War II in this debut historical novel.

Watson, a retired Army intelligence officer, recounts the events of August 1945 through the eyes of American, Russian, and British leaders as well as soldiers and spies on all sides. The chapters and sections, each helpfully labeled with dates and locations, show how the politics and espionage of the last days of World War II helped sow the seeds of the Cold War. Stalin’s hunger for power and absolute control over his army are contrasted with the British and Americans’ war-weariness and complacency. Gen. George S. Patton and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery are forced to work together again, despite their radically different personalities, in the face of a danger few recognize. Soldiers from each of the once-allied countries are thrown back onto the battlefield before they’ve finished celebrating victory, but this arena quickly proves itself to be very different from the one they left. Meanwhile, Soviet leaders attempt the unenviable task of carrying out Stalin’s orders perfectly, no matter how ill-advised, and avoiding execution. And looming in the background is the ever present specter of the newly created atomic bomb, a weapon with the power to turn a political dispute into a world-ending war. The action in this book, the first in a planned series, is confined to the period between Aug. 9 and 28 in 1945, but it’s detailed enough to fill more than 300 pages. Well-researched and fast-paced, the historical narrative truly reads like a novel, with an abundance of colorful characters both real and fictional. But it is hampered by ubiquitous typos (a “gAllent charge,” an “aboroginal term,” etc.) and awkward dialogue that often reads more like a history textbook than people speaking. The author often has characters use random Russian or German words in contexts where they are already understood to be speaking those languages or makes them spill out historical exposition for no clear reason. This method will likely take the reader out of the story.

While swiftly paced with vivid characters, this saga set in August 1945 lacks realistic dialogue.

Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4797-1232-8

Page Count: 334

Publisher: Xlibris

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.