A slow-building romantic novel that focuses on the vital bond between lovers.
In Butler’s debut novel, a pianist meets the love of her life but must let him go.
In California, aging actress Lily attends a performance of the talented pianist Katherine Konova, and reflects upon her connection to this red-haired beauty. Decades ago in Russia, Katherine’s poverty-stricken parents, Irina and Maxim, were deeply in love, and both had jobs at a factory where Yazov (nicknamed “The Bull”) was foreman. Irina and Max were convinced that they couldn’t have children, but when Irina falls ill on the job, it’s discovered that she’s pregnant. A few months after Max’s death in a freak accident, Irina marries Yazov, although she doesn’t love him. The child, Katherine, shows a talent for the piano; at 17, she’s accepted at the Moscow Conservatory where she meets Vitaly Prohorov, a married professor whose instruction wasn’t confined to music. After a romantic relationship, the two eventually separate, and Katherine marries and has children. In the present day, writer Daniel Adler has mystical visions of a girl with fiery red hair, and knows he must find her. He has a strained relationship with his mother, feeling much closer to his stepfather, Hans. Daniel attends Goethe University in Frankfurt and embarks on a disastrous relationship with a suicidal woman named Sophie, which doesn’t feed his soul. Impressed by Daniel’s blog, Lily writes Daniel and invites him to America, where he will meet and attempt to win the woman of his dreams. This novel tells a mellow, unassuming story of almost-instantaneous passion between a mature woman and a younger man. The story engagingly reveals layers of information, past and present, amidst a recurring melody of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” It also provides a sense of life in Russia under the shadow of the KGB: At any moment, an innocent citizen could be snatched and accused of wrongdoing, an ordeal that Katherine at one point experiences. Her present-day affair in California plays out against a backdrop of family secrets, which generates suspense throughout. The narrative ends on a dissonant yet hopeful note, with potential for a sequel.
A slow-building romantic novel that focuses on the vital bond between lovers.Pub Date: May 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9911509-1-5
Page Count: 230
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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