Flagrant overwriting, derivative plotting: a swashbuckler indeed.
Once again, the prolific Newcomb (coauthor: The Ghosts of Elkhorn, 1982, etc.) rounds up black-hearted villains, lionhearted heroes, and bosomy beauties for his 30-plus action-adventure tale.
It’s 1665, and young Henry Morgan is enslaved in Cuba, wicked Spaniards having carted him off, a mere child, from his native Wales. But he’s now 19, and someone certainly should have known better than to guard only lightly this future scourge of Spanish shipping—or to guard him heavily, for that matter, since it’s clear from the get-go that Henry is the stuff of superheroes, seldom to be fettered by ordinary restraints. So escape he does—in a manner sort of sluffed over by the author—in the process killing some Spaniards, stealing their ship, freeing a passel of pirates, then setting off with them as his unswervingly loyal crew. In due time he becomes “El Tigre de Caribe,” feared up and down the Caribbean—with certain notable exceptions, such as the lovely if tomboyish Nell Jolly, daughter of Morgan’s éminence gris. “Toto” (the Tiger’s pet name for her) adores him. To her considerable dismay, however, she discovers she’s not the only one. The aristocratic Elena Maria de Saucedo—she of the “perfect breasts,” “raven black” hair, “lustrous green eyes,” and “come-hither smile”—is also smitten. Highborn she may be, but trustworthy she’s not, as Henry discovers to his cost when she betrays him to the Dons. They throw him into their slammer, though not for long, of course. Before one can say “brethren of the blood,” he’s freebooting again—sacking Panama City, getting rich, undoing his enemies, marrying his sweetie, and making full sail back to Britain to become a knight of the realm.
Flagrant overwriting, derivative plotting: a swashbuckler indeed.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-26197-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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