THE GIRL WHO WROTE IN SILK

Name: THE GIRL WHO WROTE IN SILK
Author: Kelli Estes
ISBN: 978-1-4926-0833-2

by Kelli Estes ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2015

Though there are a few unnecessary coincidences, Estes' debut is a pleasing blend of historical fiction and contemporary...

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In a house on Orcas Island, the stories of two young women unfold: a 19th-century Chinese-American and a recent college graduate trying to piece together a mystery left behind.

Inara Erickson, just out of business school, has a corporate job at Starbucks waiting for her. She just needs to settle her aunt's estate before she steps into adulthood. Aunt Dahlia has left her Rothesay, the family compound on Orcas Island in the Puget Sound. But when Inara gets there, she begins to take Dahlia's old dream of turning the place into a hotel seriously. While poking around, she finds a piece of elaborately embroidered cloth hidden in a stair tread. She returns to Seattle with two objectives: to find out more about the embroidered sleeve and to convince her father to finance her conversion of Rothesay into a boutique hotel. Alternating with Inara's story, Mei Lien's tragic tale comes to light. Born in Seattle, she lives with her father and grandmother above their dry goods shop until public sentiment turns violent. On the tail of the Chinese Exclusion Act, her whole neighborhood is forced onto a boat for China. But the ship's racist owner, Inara's great-great-great grandfather Duncan Campbell, has other plans—to dump his human cargo into the sea. Mei Lien is rescued by Joseph McElroy and brought to his homestead on Orcas. They fall in love, marry, and have a son but are ostracized—and worse yet, Duncan Campbell is their neighbor. Meanwhile, Inara is beginning her own romance with Daniel Chin, an academic who's helping her research the origin of her embroidered cloth. When Inara discovers that her ancestor, soon to be commemorated in a city park, is a mass murderer, she has to decide whether to reveal her secret.

Though there are a few unnecessary coincidences, Estes' debut is a pleasing blend of historical fiction and contemporary drama.

Pub Date: July 7, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4926-0833-2

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Review Posted Online: July 12, 2015

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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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.