An entertaining, romantic story of a woman's personal and professional coming-of-age.
A young New York playwright works to take the next steps toward fulfillment.
Winnie has spent five years working as a personal assistant to Juliette Brassard, an accomplished playwright suffering from writer’s block, hoping to stay close to the theater world after graduate school. Now Juliette is going to London, where one of her plays is being restaged, and though Winnie is reluctant to go—she'd hoped to get some work done on her own play while Juliette is away—Juliette persuades her and also promises to finally give her feedback on her script. During their three weeks abroad, Winnie begins a secret whirlwind romance with Liam, Juliette’s nephew, while Juliette is trying to persuade her to join a dating app to provide material about the dating scene in London that Juliette hopes might help her get over her block. Over the course of their trip, Winnie and Juliette’s friendship and working relationship are challenged as Winnie begins to reclaim some of the confidence she lost during a disastrous grad school performance and strives to complete her play, while Juliette is forced to confront ghosts of her younger years, including her estranged sister. Bromley has written a wonderfully engaging novel with snappy narration from Winnie, and she deftly balances moments of humor with depth by providing her characters with deep backstories and complicated emotions. Though Winnie’s chipper perspective feels a bit over-the-top at first, this eases as the book settles in, and the narrative displays a wonderful sense of patience. By allowing characters their moments of awkwardness and anger rather than rushing toward easy resolutions, Bromley ensures that the ending feels completely satisfying when it arrives.
An entertaining, romantic story of a woman's personal and professional coming-of-age.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-525-81144-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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