Suspense at the expense of credibility.
A surrogate-for-hire runs for her life in the latest from Wall (A Good Man, 2005, etc.).
Jamie Long is desperate. Orphaned at six and estranged from her half-sister, the college dropout is mired in credit-card debt incurred while nursing her dying grandmother. An ad answers her prayers, offering $100,000 and a lifetime income to bear a child for gorgeous, pushing-50 televangelist Amanda Hartmann. The secrecy surrounding her artificial insemination with sperm from Amanda’s current gigolo/husband/personal trainer Toby is normal, she is assured by the Hartmanns’ lawyer. So is Jamie’s isolation at the family ranch in a remote stretch of the Texas Panhandle. Housekeeper Montgomery handles all of Jamie’s correspondence with the outside world—or not. Amanda’s diminutive brother Gus, a kingpin who runs the Hartmann oil/Christian Voter Alliance/lobbying enterprises with Soprano-like ruthlessness, reluctantly endorses Amanda’s scheme to fake pregnancy so that her devotees will assume she has birthed her own miracle child. The inseminating sperm was actually harvested from Amanda’s son, who was supposedly killed in an ATV accident but is actually in a vegetative state, being kept alive in a secluded tower of the ranch. Nearby lies supposedly bedridden matriarch Mary Millicent, Amanda’s predecessor in charismatic preaching. Secretly ambulatory and thoroughly versed in the generational curses of the Hartmanns, Mary sneaks out to warn Jamie that once Amanda “delivers,” the presence of the surrogate will be considered problematic. And Gus has no scruples about eliminating problems—like Amanda’s first husband, for instance. Jamie flees, has her baby alone and goes on the lam. After a near-kidnapping, she reunites with childhood crush Joe, making for a steamy sex-on-the-beach scene with no babysitter in evidence. Handily evading Gus’s thugs, Jamie and Joe call Amanda’s bluff in public and hope she’s more susceptible to scandal than most televangelists. By then, the plot’s banality has surpassed even the conventions of melodrama, with no redeeming depth of character.
Suspense at the expense of credibility.Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-5851-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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