by Karen Karper Fredette illustrated by Paul Fredette ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 7, 2019
While slowed by a dry backstory, this engaging tale transports readers to an intriguing village.
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A series opener focuses on a hidden settlement in the Smoky Mountains.
Karen Karper Fredette (Where God Begins to Be, 2015, etc.) presents husband and wife Wren and Kyle Makepeace. As the novel begins, the two, both in their early 30s, are out for a hike near the Tennessee/North Carolina border. They follow an old railroad path and come across a woman named Mencie. Wren and Kyle have arrived at Lovada Cove. Mencie informs the couple that people only get to the Cove if they have been “Sent or Summoned.” It turns out the Cove is a village of sorts all on its own with homes, a church, and, thanks to some local ingenuity, reliable internet service. As Wren and Kyle learn more about this community, they also discover a great deal about themselves. Wren, who was raised by foster parents and whose middle name is Lovada, will become acquainted with her sometimes disturbing family history. Kyle, who is of Cherokee descent, will find a connection to his ancestors. Yet the couple will also learn that the Cove is in trouble. Someone even plans to tell the outside world about the settlement. The opening pages of the novel are laden with dull information about Wren and Kyle (for example, he was initially impressed by her “poise as she addressed a conference for compensatory education teachers”). Nevertheless, the pace of the story—which features black-and-white illustrations by Paul Fredette (Consider the Ravens, 2011), the author’s husband—soon picks up. The Cove is an odd enclave if ever there was one. Everything from the thickening mists capable of blocking out sound to a cat with the ability to get people to follow it adds to the vivid, otherworldly atmosphere. The story progresses with a feeling of mystery and later, when the narrative reveals someone wants to betray the Cove, a sense of urgency. Dialogue, on the other hand, tends to lack depth. For instance, Kyle proclaims awkwardly in a time of distress: “At least, let’s get clear of this place!” Yet even with such obvious sentiments, the narrative deftly takes the characters to places that both they and the audience could hardly expect.
While slowed by a dry backstory, this engaging tale transports readers to an intriguing village.Pub Date: March 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72303-058-1
Page Count: 222
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Karen Karper Fredette ; illustrated by Paul A. Fredette
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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
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by Harper Lee
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SEEN & HEARD
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