The wit and nuanced shadings of Moyes’ best are unfortunately missing in this predictable tear-jerker, a pale echo of the...
More earnest and less quirky than Moyes’ later successes, Me Before You (2012) and One Plus One (2014), this romantic novel originally published in Britain in 2007 centers on the moral and emotional crises faced by a buttoned-down Englishman who disrupts the tranquility of an isolated coastal community in New South Wales when he scopes it out for a high-end resort.
For the last six years, Liza and her 10-year-old daughter, Hannah, have lived in Silver Bay with Liza’s feisty 76-year-old aunt Kathleen, who owns a hotel that's seen better days. Liza, who skippers one of several whale-watching boats in the bay, seems overprotective of Hannah; it gradually becomes clear that Liza escaped England under a cloud six years ago and is hiding from the outside world. Enter Mike, a methodical junior partner in London’s Beaker Holdings. While his fiancee, Vanessa—who happens to be the boss’s daughter—finalizes wedding plans, Mike heads to Silver Bay, where Beaker Holdings hopes to build a large luxury resort. Staying at Kathleen’s hotel and becoming increasingly friendly with the locals, Mike doesn’t let on why he’s really there. He and Liza share an obvious attraction, which only increases when he saves Hannah’s life after the boat she’s snuck into the bay gets entangled in illegal netting. Then Vanessa shows up. Once Mike’s connection to the developers becomes known, his popularity plummets. Learning from Kathleen that his plans might put Hannah at risk, Mike wakes up and tries to right the situation, first with Vanessa’s help and then on his own, whatever the sacrifice to career or love. Meanwhile, standard-issue Victim-with-a-capitol-V heroine Liza faces the demons of her past in attempting to stop the development. Of course, virtue, innocence and love win out over greed and shallow sophistication.
The wit and nuanced shadings of Moyes’ best are unfortunately missing in this predictable tear-jerker, a pale echo of the 1983 film Local Hero.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-14-312648-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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