Superb characters and alluring prose make for a truly exceptional read.
In Hugg’s (Song of the Tree Hollow, 2018) novel, a Polish-born Parisian in financial distress sells an unusual plant’s blooms to very dangerous people.
The death of Alain Tolbert, a possible suicide, greatly saddens his neighbor Renia Baranczka, as he’d been her only friend in Paris. He was also the best customer at Le Sanctuaire, the flower shop that Renia manages. Its owner, Valentina Palomer, regularly dips into the shop’s emergency funds, and the business is perpetually in debt. To solve her problems, Renia turns to an enigmatic plant that her twin sister, Estera, calls “Violet Smoke.” Inhaling the fragrance from its flowers can make a person forget certain events; Estera calls it a “memory trim.” Indeed, the Violet Smoke may be the reason for the siblings’ current estrangement. The plant can be addictive, and Renia fears that it may somehow have led to Alain’s death. But Estera’s unsavory ex-boyfriend, Zbigniew “Zbiggy” Wójcik, is willing to pay handsomely for the flowers. This affords Renia some much-needed funds, but it becomes clear that Zbiggy wants the entire plant for himself. Hugg’s absorbing tale features understated traits from multiple genres. A mystery, for example, plays in the background as periodic flashbacks involving Renia and Estera, who’s not in Paris, gradually explain the twins’ falling-out. In similar fashion, Renia’s increasing involvement with Zbiggy’s unnerving comrades slowly escalates the suspense. The characters are as bold as the flowers adorning Le Sanctuaire; police officer Kateb is oddly elusive on specifics regarding Alain’s death while Valentina’s impudence is almost comical. The author’s sublime descriptions further enrich the story: Despite the supernatural Violet Smoke’s apparent unattractiveness, Hugg endearingly notes its “velvety petals” and how its leaves make the mature plant “seem newly born”; at another point, she equates its twisty branches with “a lanky teenager dancing, bending its arms this way and that.”
Superb characters and alluring prose make for a truly exceptional read.Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-48407-5
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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