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END OF THE RACE

A well-thought-out story about a resilient woman who discovers her true strength.

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An athlete reflects on her life after her husband’s sudden disappearance in Kirscht’s novel.

Two weeks after Brian’s wife, Annika, miscarries in 2007, he goes on a sailing trip with two college friends, Dominic and Nils, and fails to return home, leaving her and their 6-year-old daughter, Sadie, alone and concerned. Annika, who’s in training for the U.S. Olympic swim team, seeks help from her rich and powerful in-laws, and she’s forced to reevaluate her familial relationships when she realizes that her husband’s parents are more concerned about their public image than the fact that their son has gone missing. She’s had a strained relationship with her own parents, as well, since she decided to marry into the much-disliked Wolfson family, but she quickly learns that she needs to rely on them, as well as herself, to keep the search for her spouse going. However, after Annika finds out that Brian took $10,000 of their savings with him, she must come to terms with the possibility that he purposely abandoned her and Sadie. Kirscht creates a multilayered story that will keep readers engaged with unexpected plot turns that confound expectations. The narrative keeps up a steady momentum, and the character development via conversations and inner monologueshelps give depth to their journeys. In one scene, Kirscht creates an ambiance of insecurity and exhaustion that’s highlighted by Annika’s pondering her past and wondering how she’ll continue to move forward for her daughter’s sake: “Would she, or either of them, ever reach the point where the sandy woodland lakes weren’t their ‘real’ home?” The story moves through Annika’s growth and pain, allowing readers not to only witness her resilience, but also to see how she helps Sadie to persevere. Although Annika has moments of resentment along the way, she learns to forgive and heal.

A well-thought-out story about a resilient woman who discovers her true strength.

Pub Date: May 3, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-09-835215-8

Page Count: 326

Publisher: BookBaby

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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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

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THE BLUE HOUR

This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.

The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.

Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.

This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9780063396524

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Mariner Books

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

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