First-timer Graham crosses lust with New Age longings in a hybrid-romance about a violinist who wins her man only after she dies. In Flint Hills, Kansas, Ethan Brown is called —Wordsworth— because he studied at Yale and has an extensive library in his law office downtown. Divorced, estranged from his teenaged son, and a little lonely despite his engagement to Katie Anne Mackey, daughter of the area’s most imposing cattle rancher, Ethan keeps his spirits up by focusing on his plan to start his own ranch adjoining the Mackeys——until, that is, he meets the new woman in town, Annette Zeldin, a now-famous violinist who left Kansas two decades ago, married, divorced, then stayed in Paris to raise a daughter and become —Europeanized.— The locals scoff at her, and at her daughter’s French accent, but Ethan is mesmerized by her depth and beauty—qualities lacking in the brash Katie Anne. Annette is in town to bury her mother before leaving forever, but her attraction to Ethan, who can quote Yeats to her on command, convinces her to stay. The mutual attraction is so strong that Ethan breaks his engagement and Annette turns her back on Paris to be a housewife in the Kansas hills. But when Katie Anne announces that she’s pregnant, Ethan feels honor-bound to marry her—and, soon after the wedding, a fire courses through the Mackeys’ and Ethan’s land, killing Annette and burning Katie Anne beyond recognition. As Annette’s spirit follows her mother toward heaven, she realizes that her love for her daughter necessitates that she remain bound to the world of the living: so she inhabits the body of her fellow burn victim, Ethan’s wife Katie Anne. The lovers are together at last—but will Ethan, now revolted by the sight of Katie Anne, ever realize that the woman he loves is inside his wife’s disfigured body? Graham’s body-switch gimmick is certainly a weird one, but her unabashed passion for cowboys, French wine, and all things romantic may win her an enthusiastic following. (First printing of 150,000; Literary Guild Main selection; $400,000 ad/promo; author tour before publication)
Pub Date: July 20, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14404-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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