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The House of Baric Part Two

Name: The House of Baric Part Two
Author: Jillian Bald
ISBN: 978-1-943594-01-6

A BROTHER'S DEFENSE

by Jillian Bald ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2016

A continuation—and deepening—of a saga set in the Balkans in the early modern period.

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In this second volume of a sweeping trilogy of 17th-century Croatia, the arrival of a baron’s brother-in-law and his men disrupts castle life.

At the end of the first volume of Bald’s (The House of Baric Part One: Shields Down, 2015) series, Resi Kokkinos, the daughter of an Ottoman Greek merchant, had finally started to settle into life in the castle of her new husband, a young Croatian baron named Mauro Baric. She had begun to love her husband, after their dreaded arranged marriage, to learn the customs of the foreign court, and even to make some friends. At the beginning of this new volume, the serenity of the Baric castle is upended with the arrival of Resi’s brother, Patrik, and his brothers in arms. The elder generation orchestrated Resi and Mauro’s marriage to quell a family feud, but the encounter between the hotheaded Patrik and the prideful Mauro brings these buried tensions to the surface. As in Bald’s previous book, the narrative and the research go hand in hand. For instance, the appearance of Patrik’s men—who hail from as far afield as Denmark and Persia—serves as an opportunity to highlight the ethnic complexity of 17th-century Europe and Croatia’s historical role as “the cross-roads of many cultures.” This middle volume is of epic proportions in and of itself. Some readers may lack the patience to wait for the tensions raised in the first pages to come to blows a full hundred pages later. Likewise, the passages devoted to things like the logistics of baking a marzipan cake will likely not satisfy those hungry for sword fights and action. But by the same token, Bald’s attention to the nuances of castle life—including the dreams and labors of servants—is laudable. And in the end, this trilogy is a grand drama. The conflicts, intrigues, and romances among the cast of characters intensify, and readers who have come this far should not only be compelled to read through to the end, but be eagerly awaiting the final installment.

A continuation—and deepening—of a saga set in the Balkans in the early modern period.

Pub Date: March 16, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-943594-01-6

Page Count: 530

Publisher: Hillwaker Publishing

Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE HOUSE OF BARIC
by Jillian Bald

- BOOK REVIEW
The House of Baric Part One
by Jillian Bald

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.