by JoAnn Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1992
Second hardcover from the author of Secret Sins (1990): a contemporary romance that delves into worlds as disparate as auction houses, fashion modeling, and the particular problems of the deaf. Poor but gorgeous Cassie McBride is determined to get away from Gallagher City, Oklahoma, and her hard-drinking mother Belle. She lands a maid's job at the mansion of the town's richest oilman, Quinlan Gallagher. There, she learns to love fine Oriental antiques and dreams of one day presiding over an auction house. But antiques are not her only love: she falls fast and hard for the wealthy oilman's oldest son, Roarke. The two have a torrid affair, but it's broken up by the evil and powerful Quinlan, who has Cassie accused of theft and run out of town. She heads to New York, where she finds out she is pregnant, then is taken under the wing of Nina Grace, who owns a famous modeling agency. After the baby is born, Nina turns Cassie—now called Jade after her favorite stone—into a supermodel. Roarke finds her and tries to win her back, but Belle lets it slip that she and Quinlan were once lovers, so that Cassie and Roarke share a father. Cassie is horrified, particularly because her daughter was born deaf, a fact she's certain is due to her tainted parentage. But the ever-stoical Cassie, rejecting Roarke, throws herself into her work and eventually marries a wealthy older businessman, who sets her up in the auction business of which she's always dreamed. But the many lies she has told in order to protect herself and her child are unraveling; and when her husband Sam lies dying, he confronts her with what he has learned of her background. At the end, Belle's lies are exposed; Quinlan is dead; and the once poor little Okie is served her happiness on a silver platter. The motivations often strain credibility, but, still, an engaging romantic read.
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-07762-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
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by JoAnn Ross
BOOK REVIEW
by JoAnn Ross
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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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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