A human and humorous look at two headstrong characters battling the challenges that come with falling in love.
The worlds of thoroughbred racing and high-end wine-making provide a backdrop to this novel that mixes international romance with a mysterious death.
Meredith Montgomery is always racing to something, whether it’s a meeting to talk about her new wine that’s about to launch or to hit the trails in preparation for another marathon. She’s the kind of woman who seems to have it all—but that description also includes breast cancer. A second bout with the disease has Meredith running scared. Before she undergoes surgery, she takes what she hopes will be a quick trip to Edinburgh to do some research on her family’s winery. There, she runs into an intriguing character, thoroughbred breeder Elliott Fraser. The two are immediately attracted to one another, but their ties to their work and their smartphones threaten their budding romance. The second novel in the Fraser family story proves that author Logan (The Ruby Brooch, 2012) has a smooth, sincere storytelling style that turns what could be an ordinary romance into much more. The heroes, Meredith and Elliott, are extremely human despite their wealth and power. Meredith is wounded from a bad marriage and her cancer trauma, and Elliott is recovering from a past attack on his life and reeling from a current attack on his horses, which could cost him his family business. When the two ultimately get together, their volatile love is strained by their inability to relinquish control—which is part of the reason the story works, since every time it looks like the couple is going to succeed, a realistic problem gets in their way. At times, however, the book wanders into typical romance land with silly plotlines (one involving a ghost that interferes in everyone’s lives) and a rather easily solved mystery plot. Despite these minor flaws, though, the amount of rich dialogue, smart detailing and evocative descriptions make it easy to focus on the fun love story being told so well.
A human and humorous look at two headstrong characters battling the challenges that come with falling in love.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-615-88050-1
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Katherine Lowry Logan
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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