An intelligent and sensuous romance.
In her U.S. debut, veteran British novelist McMahon animates a historical setting with confidence and a 21st-century sensibility.
Emilie Selden is an oddity, a female scientist in 18th-century England, but her story revolves around her education in a more commonplace subject: matters of the heart. Since her French mother died in childbirth, Emilie has lived an enclosed, studious life with her father, alchemist, natural philosopher and Royal Society fellow Sir John Selden. Her true getting of wisdom, however, begins when a wealthy merchant, smooth Robert Aislabie, penetrates cloistered Selden Manor. Swiftly seduced and impregnated by Aislabie, Emilie finds herself expelled from her father’s laboratory and life. She marries Aislabie, moves to London and learns to be a lady with the help of her moody maid Sarah, but she loses her baby and experiences deep homesickness. When her father dies, Selden Manor passes to Aislabie, who has grand plans to replace the old house with a neoclassical mansion complete with park and lake, which will require the demolition of a local village. McMahon busily weaves social commentary on London slums, rural poverty, infant mortality, prostitution and the slave trade into Emilie’s initially introspective narrative, which slowly moves outward from grief to the growing recognition of Aislabie’s exploitative nature and an awakening to emotional engagement. This alchemical transmutation speeds up when Sarah is revealed to be Aislabie’s mistress, pregnant with his child. Emilie throws her out, but after an explosion in the laboratory uncovers Sir John’s diaries, which chart his undying love for his daughter and the truth about her lowly origins, she has a change of heart. She rescues Sarah’s baby, stands up to her husband and acknowledges her love for the local rector, who has offered quiet succor throughout her ordeals.
An intelligent and sensuous romance.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-307-23851-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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