An engaging sea yarn with more verisimilitude, if less romance, than O’Brian readers expect.
Comparisons to Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin saga are inevitable, but Stockwin’s debut, the first in a planned naval series covering approximately the same era, focuses on the common seamen rather than on the officers. No musical duets in the captain’s chambers here.
Stockwin, a retired lieutenant commander in the British Royal Navy, introduces as his unlikely hero Thomas Kydd, a 20-year-old wig-maker pressed into service in 1793 just as Britain is drawn into war against postrevolutionary France. Overwhelmed by life on the 98-gun battleship Duke William, landlubber Kydd is befriended, first by an older sailor on his watch who dies in a tragic if typical accident in the sails and then by the mysterious Nicholas Renzi, a man of wealth in self-exile as a common seaman who will undoubtedly reappear in later installments. As Kydd gradually gains his sea legs, the reader learns with him the intricate workings of the boat and gets to know through his eyes the men above and below deck: the inexperienced captain who improves with time, an able but cruel officer, potential mutineers inspired by radical political leanings, hardened seamen hoping to land a bounty that will make them rich. Kydd’s first storm at sea is rendered with great drama that is enhanced when the Duke William crew attempts to aid a ship in distress—with unexpected results. Kydd participates in a landing party on the French coast, ending up behind enemy lines, and in a sea battle. Warfare is depicted with gruesome, at times breath-stopping detail but little glory. As Kydd says, “It was the uncertainty, the knowledge that out there was an enemy who was doing his best to kill him . . . To his shame his knees began to tremble again.” Kydd almost makes some disastrous choices, but in the end his seamanship, his patriotic loyalty, and a bit of luck save the day.
An engaging sea yarn with more verisimilitude, if less romance, than O’Brian readers expect.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7432-1458-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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