by Jessica Stirling ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1994
A sequel to the author's Lantern for the Barn (1992), that lowering, robustly peopled novel about an infanticide trial in 1788 Glasgow. The time is now 1802, and the acquitted mother, recently widowed after a post-trial marriage, finds herself mistress of a considerable estate and a flourishing salt works in Ayrshire. Enter that rogue, cheat, and extraordinary lover Frederick Striker, father of the murdered baby; although he was not responsible, he's no stranger to untimely deaths. Frederick Striker had arrived on a dark and stormy night by sea, determined to marry Clare. Although she had been certain ``her rage was impermeable,'' Clare is dismayed to discover that she draws, still, a split-second pleasure from Frederick. Also lodging in Clare's house is the French scientist Henri Leblanc, a student of Lavoisier, who promises great inventions based on the interaction of gases. To the surprise of all, Clare appoints Frederick her factor in the salt works and provides Henri (who is charming Clare's young daughter) with a laboratory. In the meantime, Frederick lures former enemies into plots not only to profit from Henri's work, but also to gain ownership of Clare's estate. Also pursuing Frederick are an Irish beauty, who's not only his lover but also the daughter of his vanished wife, and the wife of a local industrialist. Before Clare, who's done her own plotting, takes her long-awaited revenge, there'll be a killing, a monstrous birth during a stormy catastrophe in the church, murderous games (there's an almost-hanging), and various (arranged) explosions from Henri's laboratory. Not as concentrated in dramatic plausibility, perhaps, as Lantern, but the heroines are gritty, keen, and hard-working; the ambiance is realistically seaside-rugged; and Stirling has again gathered a group of well-intentioned-to-deadly beings from whom she wrings plenty of melodrama, suspense, and gossip.
Pub Date: March 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-10546-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
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More by Jessica Stirling
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004
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
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