Rousing historical fiction with a feminist bent.
In Andrews’ historical novel, an American journalist faces misogyny as she travels to cover American soldiers fighting in the Great War.
Alice Simmons, a young reporter from St. Paul, Minnesota, follows her mentor, Ira Cunningham, to Paris to write about the ongoing war in 1918. (The novel’s action takes place over the course of that year’s summer, when United States troops began to arrive in Europe.) As a female journalist, Alice is repeatedly blocked from covering serious matters, while her male colleagues are able to leave Paris and report from the front lines. After she fights off an assault by her commanding officers, Maj. Richard Martel and Capt. Ralph Buck, Ira convinces her to join his daughter Trudy (who is Alice’s childhood best friend) as a nurse in the hospital. While she has always aspired to be a reporter, Alice was convinced to go to school for nursing as a backup career option; she excelled, partly due to her parents’ medical careers and the access that came with them. At the hospital, Alice faces more roadblocks when she discovers her credentials will need to be sent for before she can fully enlist as an Army nurse—she must work as an aide until they arrive. The head nurse, Marion Pickler, has a strong prejudice against aides, and, regardless of the fact that Alice is actually a nurse, is harsh and abusive toward her, along with the other aides (“Well, I can’t keep you out of this hospital, but you’re not welcome here”). Alice’s standing becomes even more dire when Martel and Buck take revenge by accusing her of espionage. In spite of everything, Alice cheerfully tends to the wounded soldiers in her care. Andrews writes the two narrators’ voices distinctively, making it easy to tell whether it’s the young, passionate, and optimistic Alice or the hardened and pessimistic (yet still idealistic) Ira who is speaking. Though most characters in the novel are men, Alice has plenty of her own agency and tends to save herself rather than wait for someone to save her, making her an engaging and powerful character. Fans of inspiring war narratives will find much to love in this novel.
Rousing historical fiction with a feminist bent.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2023
ISBN: 9798989383559
Page Count: 326
Publisher: 46 North Publications
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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