A heartfelt, harrowing, and engrossing tale set during the Reconstruction era.
A historical novel focuses on a doctor’s apprentice in Illinois after the Civil War.
As in many of the penny dreadfuls Tom Slocum loves, his adventure starts with the arrival of a mysterious stranger in town. This man turns the teenager’s community of Sandy Ford upside down. Amid the turmoil, 15-year-old Tom discovers that the enemies of freedom may be in his own backyard—and that it often takes sharper skills to save a life than to end one. From the moment Dr. Robert Steele arrives on the Daisy Belleferry in 1871, Tom’s life is forever changed. Though admired for his healing skills, Steele fans the flames of controversy with his advocacy for peace and modern sensibilities in the Ku Klux Klan–controlled town. Recognizing Tom’s potential as a doctor, Steele makes him his apprentice, sharing his medical wisdom and introducing him to a broader world. But with this new knowledge comes danger, and Tom finds himself targeted by the Klan. When Tom’s father dies, a corrupt bureaucrat confines the teen to an orphanage that’s fueled by forced labor. Compelled to escape, Tom finds shelter with a Black family, reuniting with Steele and further stoking conflict with the local Klansmen. When the Klan’s leader is shot, Tom learns to set aside the ideals of a gunslinger and assume the mantle of a healer. Rife with examples of racism and religious hypocrisy, Raffensperger’s depiction of life in the post–Civil War Midwest may upend cherished notions of the freedom proffered by the American government of the time. Contextualizing these struggles against the backdrop of the brutality of war and its aftermath, the story calls into question the justification of systematized violence—extolling instead the power of education and true charity. But the author offers more than a thoughtful political story. Filled with excitement, intriguing medical interventions, and the triumph of forbidden love, the gripping historical adventure will delight readers.
A heartfelt, harrowing, and engrossing tale set during the Reconstruction era.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68235-519-0
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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