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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Back to a Jurassic Park sideshow for another immensely entertaining adventure, this fashioned from the loose ends of Crichton's 1990 bestseller. Six years after the lethal rampage that closed the primordial zoo offshore Costa Rica, there are reports of strange beasts in widely separated Central American venues. Intrigued by the rumors, Richard Levine, a brilliant but arrogant paleontologist, goes in search of what he hopes will prove a lost world. Aided by state-of- the-art equipment, Levine finds a likely Costa Rican outpostbut quickly comes to grief, having disregarded the warnings of mathematician Ian Malcolm (the sequel's only holdover character). Malcolm and engineer Doc Thorne organize a rescue mission whose ranks include mechanical whiz Eddie Carr and Sarah Harding, a biologist doing fieldwork with predatory mammals in East Africa. The party of four is unexpectedly augmented by two children, Kelly Curtis, a 13-year-old "brainer," and Arby Benton, a black computer genius, age 11. Once on the coastal island, the deliverance crew soon links up with an unchastened Levine and locates the hush-hush genetics lab complex used to stock the ill- fated Jurassic Park with triceratops, tyrannosaurs, velociraptors, etc. Meanwhile, a mad amoral scientist and his own group, in pursuit of extinct creatures for biotech experiments, have also landed on the mysterious island. As it turns out, the prehistoric fauna is hostile to outsiders, and so the good guys as well as their malefic counterparts spend considerable time running through the triple-canopy jungle in justifiable terror. The far-from-dumb brutes exact a gruesomely heavy toll before the infinitely resourceful white-hat interlopers make their final breakout. Pell-mell action and hairbreadth escapes, plus periodic commentary on the uses and abuses of science: the admirable Crichton keeps the pot boiling throughout.
Pub Date: Sept. 28, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-41946-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
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