Singer employs a light comic touch to this engaging second novel sure to appeal to romantics and animal lovers alike.
A cheating husband, dangerous horses, a dashing philanthropist and rescued elephants converge in this charming account of a woman’s recovery from a failed marriage.
Neelie’s always been a bit out of it, but when her husband’s veterinary partner calls to tell her she’s pregnant (and that would be thanks to Neelie’s husband Matt), Neelie retreats to the emotional safety of a box of jelly donuts. She soon discovers that Matt has closed their bank accounts and put a second mortgage on their house, leaving Neelie close to destitute, her income dependent on training difficult horses and the odd riding student. To make matters worse, Matt is trying to persuade Neelie he still loves her, that the affair was just one of those big mistakes. It’s been increasingly hard to get up in the morning, until friends who run a local wildlife sanctuary offer her the opportunity of a lifetime—travel Africa and rescue an injured elephant. Neelie takes on the challenge, and Matt assists with the project as well. The sanctuary and the rescue mission are financed by Thomas Princeton Pennington, a fairly impressive millionaire, at once rugged and sophisticated, who goes on the trek to supervise. When Neelie returns from Africa, it doesn’t take long for her to fall deeply in love—first with the elephant, Margo, and her baby, then with Tom, who’s taken a shine to Neelie as well. Singer (Horseplay, 2004), a horsewoman herself, as well as a foster mother to baby elephants, uses her expertise to deftly convey the passion Neelie has for the animals in her care, and the joy this kind of shared life can bring. On the human front, Neelie has a decision to make: Take Matt back, with all the comfort and certainty that offers, or consider Tom and a childless (his one demand) life of excitement.
Singer employs a light comic touch to this engaging second novel sure to appeal to romantics and animal lovers alike.Pub Date: July 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2677-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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