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DARK BLUE WAVES

A rewarding read for lovers of historical fiction and Jane Austen.

A scholar torn between her father’s expectations and her own passion for literature finds herself unexpectedly transported to Regency-era England in Sullivan’s novel.

Janet Roberts is a college student living her dream during her semester abroad in Bath, England, where she’ll be able to take a prestigious Jane Austen seminar. Not even her overbearing father’s stipulation that she intern at an architectural firm of his choosing can dampen her excitement. When a stray cricket ball somehow knocks her out of the present and back into the year 1813, she wonders if she’s hit her head harder than she thought (“Maybe she was in a coma. Do people dream in a coma?”). While waking up in the Regency era might seem like an Austen fan’s dream, the reality is anything but: Janet finds herself woefully out of her depth navigating the strict social codes and expectations of the time period. Her only lifeline, as she struggles to adjust, is the sweet and friendly Emma Huntington, an ancestor of Charles Huntington, who donated one of his properties to the academic program Janet is in. Emma’s brother, the dashing yet aloof Sir Edward, isn’t as welcoming but is just as intriguing. While hiding her true identity and seeking a way back to her own time, Janet must answer an increasingly difficult question: Does she truly want to return? The novel’s incorporation of art, poetry, and architecture creates a vivid and immersive homage to the 19th-century setting; the author’s clear passion for the period shines through and enhances the story without ever overwhelming it. One of the most impressive aspects of the book is the dialogue’s seamless transitions between modern and Regency-era speech, with each character sounding true to their time. However, Janet’s internal thoughts often feel repetitive, particularly in the early and middle parts of the story, which slows down the narrative’s momentum. In the later sections, chronology occasionally shifts between scenes without warning, which can be confusing. Despite these flaws, the novel is distinguished by its rich historical detail and its thoughtful explorations of identity, personal agency, and the tension between obligation and desire.

A rewarding read for lovers of historical fiction and Jane Austen.

Pub Date: May 30, 2022

ISBN: 9781737729341

Page Count: 444

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2025

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THE NIGHTINGALE

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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