While slowed by a dry backstory, this engaging tale transports readers to an intriguing village.
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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