Take the basis for a fine literary cookbook, fold it lightly around a thin romantic plot, heap the whole confection with allusion and history, then glaze it with pretension, and there you'll have Deval's first effort—a hybrid novel-cookbook, termed a ``culinary romance.'' Pomme Bouquin, a self-styled cooking teacher, lives in London but mostly occupies a rarer world made up of great books and good food. She's a girl who smells of cinnamon, smiles a wide smile, and will go to extremes to win the rather hard heart of the man of her dreams, a musician named Jeremy. For Pomme, going to extremes specifically means planning the ultimate meal of seduction. For inspiration, she turns to Colette, Lord Byron, Madame de SÇvignÇ, and other literary lights, re-creating their recipes for us and fully evoking the sensuousness in their writing as well. Alas, it isn't enough for arrogant Jeremy, who dumps her. And in short order Pomme is back at her books, seeking a suitable recipe for revenge. Will it be the Count of Monte Cristo's poisoned lemonade or, perhaps, arsenic-laced jam † la Madame Bovary? Pomme seems deadly serious about her plans for vengeance. But, alas again, there just isn't enough sustenance here to meet the minimum daily requirements of a real novel. Pomme, Jeremy, and the other characters speak in indistinguishable, self-important voices. They're all monomaniacal about good food, but, finally, they are as skimpy and expendable as the paper frills on the lamb chop. The real meat of this book is in the rich anecdotes of the meals dished out in literature, followed by the recipes to achieve them. A feast, then, for food-lovers and cookbook fans, but those hoping for a real story will find it half-baked.
Pub Date: Nov. 8, 1993
ISBN: 0-88001-322-2
Page Count: 197
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
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
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