A romance that starts out like a breath of retro Daphne Du Maurier, but ends up facile and old hat. Where's a 36-year-old divorcÇe going to find her Prince Charming? Probably not at a mortuary in Tennessee, where Summer McAfee, president of the Daisy Fresh janitorial service, is scrubbing out the men's toilet on Saturday night, filling in for a cleaning crew that never showed up. Imagine her surprise when the corpse of a naked man jumps off an embalming table and takes her hostage. Even with a battered face that makes him look like a monster, Summer knows her attacker is ``just a man. A violent, cruel man clutching a scalpel with which he had threatened to cut her throat.'' Not exactly Jamaica Inn, but promising. Unfortunately, between the time he ties Summer up with her bra and the time he shields her body against a fusillade of bullets, the reader realizes that this monster (``Frankenstein,'' she calls him) is the hero. When he begins cursing her driving and criticizing the size of her purse, it's clear he's the Universal Husband. Regrettably, everybody's out of danger and onto the predictably beaten path of dime-novel romance. The untamed beast, also called Steve, has been mistreated and misjudged. He's an ex-cop back to find out who killed his lover Deedee. (Deedee's ghost shows up throughout, kind of a honky-tonk Tinkerbell.) Running from the bad guys, Summer and Steve ride the Smoky Mountains on a Japanese dirt bike with a temperamental Pekinese. Full breasted and hairy chested (not the dog), they make love in forest glades. When the ride is over, Steve is ready for take-out pizza and weekends at the mall. Robards's usual professional effort (Maggy's Child, 1994, etc.), but a disappointing descent into cute. (Literary Guild alternate selection; Doubleday Book Club main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-31034-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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