The solution to the Stella puzzle is fairly obvious, while other mysteries—such as a plausible motive for the villain—go...
Lackluster sequel to Mitchard’s Oprah-anointed debut.
In The Deep End of the Ocean (1996), kidnapping victim Ben Cappadora returned as a teenager to his parents Beth and Pat, owners of a popular Chicago Italian eatery. Now 25, Ben has married Eliza, adopted Bolivian daughter of Candy, the detective who helped investigate his disappearance. Ben and Eliza have a six-month-old daughter, Stella. Meanwhile, Ben’s ne’er-do-well older brother Vincent, bankrolled by local godfather Charley Seven, has filmed a documentary about the families of other kidnapped and disappeared children entitled No Time to Wave Goodbye. Beth is conflicted about the movie, not just because of the debt to Charley (who’s really a pussycat), but because it reopens old wounds—for example, the fact that Ben still thinks of himself as “Sam,” the name his kidnapper gave him, and is actually closer to the kidnapper’s husband than to his real father. Shortly after Vincent receives an Oscar for No Time to Wave Goodbye, Stella is snatched from her babysitter. Candy and Beth mobilize their forces, but police have no leads. Then a letter appears, penned in pretentious prose complete with Latin legalese, leading Vincent to recall the straitlaced lawyer in his documentary whose favorite daughter vanished at age 17. The book’s most gripping sequences follow, involving wilderness survival in the Northern California mountains. Ample detail based on Mitchard’s own backcountry treks lends verisimilitude as Ben and Vincent search for Stella aided by a seasoned guide and her trusty kidnapper-sniffing St. Bernard. The proliferation of characters may confuse readers, especially those unfamiliar with the earlier book, and a disproportionately large chunk of the narrative is devoted to exposition.
The solution to the Stella puzzle is fairly obvious, while other mysteries—such as a plausible motive for the villain—go unplumbed.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6774-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
