An engaging, nuanced female awakening journey in the West.
On a trip to Wyoming, a divorced mother finds romance with a younger cowboy in this debut novel.
Divorced mom Kate Marino, 36, works at her dad’s St. Louis car dealership. She is astounded when her father, fed lies by jealous older brother James, accuses her of sleeping with clients and even doing drugs. The incident finally spurs Kate to take time off with her son, Sam, soon to enter kindergarten, and travel out West. Her father, the family member seemingly most traumatized by the years-earlier death of another brother (older than James) on the family’s Missouri farm, journeys with them part of the way. Then Kate and Sam arrive at Prickly Pear Ranch in Wyoming, and her life transforms. Ranch hand Jake McComb, 13 years her junior, is drawn to her, and they begin an intense love affair. Once her trip is over, Kate continues to commute between St. Louis and Wyoming to be with Jake, although their relationship has its ups and downs. The myriad challenges they encounter include Jake’s demanding new job at another ranch in a desolate town, where an attractive woman more age-appropriate for the cowboy lurks. Still, Kate buys wedding rings and then rents and makes moves to buy her own Wyoming cabin so that the couple can be together and she can pursue the painting and photography that she abandoned at her father’s insistence she join his business. Will Kate and Jake eventually find happiness together? Hennessey has crafted a narrative that effectively builds on the tropes of chick-lit and cowboy romance to take some deeper turns. While some of the main characters’ actions may disappoint romance fans, the author deftly presents the couple’s struggles with flaws and damage from their pasts throughout the tale (“Kate had seen a therapist, with appointments as frequent as her every-other-week manicures, but they seemed to be of little help”). This makes the plot’s last-act complications part of an established context. Additionally, Kate’s attempts to come to peace with her art and her new life out West ultimately come off as heartwarming as well as profound.
An engaging, nuanced female awakening journey in the West.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-943006-03-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Spark Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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