Fraught relationships, wartime letters, and complex characters make this a satisfying read.
In the third entry in the author’s French Letters series (Engaged in War, 2018, etc.), two brothers cope with the aftermaths of two wars.
In Colorado in 1983, Woodrow Wilson Hastings jumps off a Colorado overpass into oncoming traffic, and “Will Hastings’ time on earth was over.” At the funeral, his sons, Peter and Frank, quarrel bitterly. Peter calls Frank “an actual bastard” whom Will had brought home from World War II in France, where Will had been a combat surgeon. Peter’s written apology never reaches Frank, and hard feelings grow as Frank tries to prove that he’s not the adopted son of a French whore—but the discovery of old wartime letters shakes Frank’s understanding of who he is. They’re very different characters: Peter had been a star athlete, an Air Force Academy graduate and a gunship pilot in Vietnam, and now he is a Pan Am pilot who loves “the freedom of flight.” Frank has a learning disability and “grew up largely invisible but observant.” He fought as a grunt in Vietnam and now reports for the local paper while writing a war novel on the side. Meanwhile, their mother, Virginia, sits in Loving Arms rest home, “demented as a bedbug.” Each squabbling brother then faces his own life-changing event, and Peter’s is a doozy. He’s deadheading—a pilot riding as a passenger—on a 747 that’s hijacked and flown to Karachi. Frank flies to France to find his grandmother and learn more about who he really is. His travels through Normandy and small towns such as Saint-Lô combine with Will’s wartime backstory to bring a rich feel to the tale. While readers wonder whether the brothers will reconcile, interesting surprises await.
Fraught relationships, wartime letters, and complex characters make this a satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9906121-8-6
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Vire Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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