A dynamic, multifaceted treat.
Debut author Morris offers a timely novel about a food safety crisis.
An E. coli outbreak. A product recall. For most people, such events trigger a cursory check of the refrigerator or a doctor’s appointment, at most, but this novel shows how, for those working in the food industry, they’re a storm on the horizon and that even the most basic, everyday choices can dramatically alter fate. Stella Gonzalez, who washes produce for the Green Earth Organics corporation, struggles with the fact that her company fails to provide her with a living wage even after she’s worked there for 15 years to provide for her daughter. Executive Jane Janhusen, meanwhile, loves the company and her position at the right hand of company head Kate Worthington, an organic-food celebrity. But when a food crisis unfolds, saving their reputations and that of the company becomes harder than she could have imagined. On the outside, Ruth Malmquist fears for her son’s life after he’s infected by contaminated spinach. The three women’s conflicting desires intersect and entangle, while Green Earth Organics founder Roger Worthington, Kate’s husband, offers perspective into the gritty details of corporate damage control. The points of view shift and change as the crisis progresses, creating an engaging narrative of personal responsibility. Morris’ writing is strong and incisive, the plot is complex and nuanced, and the attention to detail keeps the story compelling throughout. Specifically, the book conveys a great deal of information about the workings of the agricultural industry, especially for such a slim volume—from executives’ concerns regarding management, public relations, and the possibility of selling the company to the laborers’ thoughts on unionization and how all these factors affect the world at large. What’s more, setting the story in 2008 allows it to address the rise of health food and lifestyle celebrities, local-food movements, the advent of “superfoods,” and even the financial crisis. The novel also tackles difficult issues involving family, grief, and sexual harassment with compassionate tact and multicultural insight.
A dynamic, multifaceted treat.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5246-6999-7
Page Count: 212
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
