A STOPOVER IN VENICE

Name: A STOPOVER IN VENICE
Author: Kathryn Walker
ISBN: 978-0-307-26706-1

by Kathryn Walker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 22, 2008

Only by skipping the plot and dialogue may Venice-lovers find kernels of pleasure in the physical/sensual description of the...

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Emmy Award–winning actress Walker debuts as a novelist with this love letter to Venice, written in the guise of a romance about an American woman who takes a hiatus from her unhappy marriage.

Former actress Nel is touring Europe with her famous musician husband Antony. After an argument, Nel impulsively leaves him on a train and returns to Venice. Taking a walk, she saves a lost Chihuahua from hooligans. The dog belongs to the aging Signora da Isola, called Lucy by friends. Soon Nel has checked out of her hotel, The Gritti Palace, and moved in with Lucy, a gifted gardener who has lived in self-imposed isolation since her husband’s early death. Also staying in Lucy’s historic palazzo, a former convent, is the handsome Matteo, who is restoring a fresco discovered on one of the walls. Soon Lucy, Matteo and Nel stumble upon a connection between the convent and Giorgione, a brilliant 16th-century painter whose La Tempeste is considered a masterpiece to equal Bellini or da Vinci. A young woman’s letters are discovered, then the inevitable diary which describes Giorgione’s love affair with a high-born, young Venetian woman named Clara. A talented artist herself, Clara was raised by a wicked stepmother who tried to thwart her talent and her romance. But Clara, who painted the fresco while pregnant with Giorgione’s son, grabbed her brief shot at happiness before the Plague cut her and Giorgione’s lives short. While Nel and her new friends learn more about Clara and Giorgione, she is increasingly drawn into the sense of community evolving among the art historians and scholars who surround Lucy, in particular sensitive Matteo. Nel occasionally talks by phone to Antony without resolving their unspoken separation. Unfortunately, the novel’s conversations and interactions seldom ring true, and Nel, with her pretentious musings, is not likable or believable.

Only by skipping the plot and dialogue may Venice-lovers find kernels of pleasure in the physical/sensual description of the city’s history, art, food and architecture.

Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-307-26706-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.