After Aiken's nearly seventy novels, here is a new Regency-period epic, depicting two British schoolgirls who switch places in life and successfully fool some of the people some of the time. Sarah Alvey Clement of New Bedford, Mass., and Louisa Winship of Northumberland, England, could be identical twins, though they're not even related. What chance that they should both land in the Abbey School, Reading, scheduled to graduate in spring, 1815! Louisa, stern and selfish, is determined to be a missionary despite her parents' disapproval, and so convinces the more loving "Alvey" to return to Louisa's stately home, Birkland Hall, thus disguising from the Winships senior the fact that their unfilial daughter is actually off to Serampore, India, pursuing her chosen profession. Alvey, an aspiring novelist, is quite readily adaptable and soon finds herself ensconced at Birkland Hall, where she is held in considerably highter esteem than the hated subject of her imposture—in fact, Louisa's younger siblings have been dreading the return of their awful sister for years. The successful publication of Alvey's novel, Wicked Lord Love, does little to assuage her grief when Louisa returns, determined to regain her rightful place at Birkland. Brokenhearted, and leaving wistful new "relations" behind, Alvey sojourns in Newcastle until summoned back to possible daughterhood and even romance, chez Winship. This baroquely complex, contrived but sometimes artful period piece has its occasional moments of charm, though, all in all, it seems to be largely without point.
Pub Date: April 1, 1987
ISBN: 0385239645
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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