A sprawling yet intimate kidnapping tale with a strong mix of action and character development.
A woman becomes torn between her husband and a man from her past as she uncovers a dangerous scheme in this third installment of a series.
After a tumultuous adolescence, Dina Youngblood, a striking Seminole/Cherokee beauty, is married to evangelist Aaron Burning Rain. They reside in the Bitterroot Confederacy of Indians, coexisting with colorful neighbors (“A male alligator—halpatee, in what Uncle Donnie called ‘Seminole talk’—sounded his love song from a nearby waterway”). Aaron is devoted to Dina and planned to raise the son fathered by her former lover, Marty Osceola, as his own; but the child, whom they named Aaron Jr., was stillborn. While running errands, she meets a stranger who gives her an unsettling gift—a set of receiving blankets. Following a series of bizarre encounters with the figure, she learns that her son was kidnapped at birth by a criminal network and is still alive. While she searches for the truth, her husband reconnects with a former prayer partner named Nate Bush who has a mentoring program called Trail to the Stars that he wants Aaron and Dina to endorse. Dina is skeptical and soon realizes her son’s abduction is connected to the program. When Marty suddenly returns, Dina discovers that he may ultimately be the key to locating her child. In clear, engaging prose, Schaller (100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, 2014, etc.) brings to life Dina and her quest to find out what happened to her son. One of the novel’s major strengths is its detailed setting and depiction of life on the Bitterroot reservation. The author offers an incisive and compassionate view of Bitterroot and the hopes and dreams of the people who call it home. The well-developed central characters include Dina and her great-grandmother Mama Hat. The mystery surrounding Dina’s son leads to a complex web of intrigue that’s suspenseful and deftly plotted. Schaller’s subplots are equally well-crafted. One of the most poignant comes in the form of Mama Hat’s journal entries about a young woman named Noccalula. Although this is the third novel in the series, the author provides enough back story to help newcomers understand the characters and their intricate relationships.
A sprawling yet intimate kidnapping tale with a strong mix of action and character development.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4809-4105-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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