Fans will be happy to read Rev. Black’s further adventures, but this latest installment won't win him any new ones.
Five years after her mother passed away, Alexis Fletcher is still plunged into grief every Christmas season.
Alexis would much rather take a few sleeping pills and fall into oblivion than decorate a tree. Despite her depression, she does as Rev. Black asks and writes a Christmas prayer pleading for happiness. It’s hard to muster much sympathy for Alexis, who practices a rather self-centered version of Christianity. Prayer becomes simply a series of “requests to God,” who apparently wants nothing more than for his children to be happy and financially stable. Indeed, Alexis suffers in the lap of luxury. She has a ridiculously high-paying job as a motivational speaker, which allows her to make her own hours, to travel, to take care of those she loves without batting an eye. Saddled with an emotionally abusive slacker of a husband, her sister, Sabrina, is loath to ask for Alexis’ help. Alexis certainly has the financial means to pay their bills, but will her Christian faith be strong enough to turn the other cheek, letting bygones be bygones? Alexis’ fiance, Chase Dupont III, is a gorgeous and wealthy Prince Charming whom Rev. Black hand-selected for her. Chase’s mother, Geneva, hates Alexis, however, and plots to sabotage their engagement. Alexis spots Geneva’s tricks, but Chase is blind to them. How long before he will have to choose between his idyllic past and his future happiness? Roby’s (The Prodigal Son, 2014, etc.) latest romance in the best-selling Reverend Curtis Black series is unfortunately marred by stilted, clunky phrasing (“She would feel sorry for Alexis for having to live in such a paltry manner”). The tale itself resembles “Cinderella” wandering into A Christmas Carol.
Fans will be happy to read Rev. Black’s further adventures, but this latest installment won't win him any new ones.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2604-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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