A familiar tale, but one that has a melodramatic sincerity.
In Flerlage’s (Before Bethlehem, 2012) short novel, a woman cleaning up a cellar finds a keepsake that conjures painful memories of love and loss.
When Lucy gets the “coveted chore” of sweeping her grandfather Landon Myers’ cellar, she expects to find nothing more than dust and mouse droppings there. She does find a couple of dead mice, and even a snakeskin, but the real discovery is an old baseball. She can tell right away that it means something to her grandfather: “As he took it, his heart raced; sweat formed above his thin white eyebrows.” After he collects himself, he tells Lucy the story of the ball, and of his life before he married her grandmother. In 1975, Landon was a celebrated pediatric oncologist, recently divorced, and the father of a young son, Alex. As per the custody agreement, Landon saw his child on weekends, which they spent going to Cincinnati Reds games—Alex was a huge fan—and at one game, he caught a foul ball, barehanded. Lucy later asks her grandfather why he’d kept his first marriage, and Alex, a secret: “I had to compartmentalize my life into two existences in order to help me to heal,” he says. Back in 1975, Alex was ill; he was experiencing headaches and issues with his vision. An angiogram confirmed what Landon feared: a brain tumor. The irony of a doctor who saves children’s lives but can’t save his own son’s isn’t lost on Flerlage; in fact, he even titles a chapter “Tragic Irony,” and later, he has Landon’s ex-wife, Marilyn, say that the loss of Alex will hurt Landon the most “because he, of all people, can’t save our son.” Suffice it to say that the book lacks subtlety, and it has the sentimental tone and flavor of a film on the Hallmark Channel. That said, it also tells an unusually affecting story. Overall, this is an earnest, unpretentious book that, despite overly deliberate grabs for the heartstrings, still manages to pluck them, all the same.
A familiar tale, but one that has a melodramatic sincerity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9898281-2-3
Page Count: 133
Publisher: DreamScapes Publishing Ltd
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
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