A sparkling re-creation of Britain’s literary and political avant-garde.
Love blossoms and repartee flows for playwright George Bernard Shaw and his coterie of late-Victorian literati and socialists in this blithe historical novel.
Hall’s yarn fictionalizes the relationships of three notable real-life couples at the center of British intellectual life in the 1890s. One is the attraction of Shaw, a self-proclaimed “writing machine” who insists that his work is too important to permit any commitment to a woman, to Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a down-to-earth heiress who puts up with Shaw’s vanity but proves adept at puncturing it: “You regard yourself as a fountain of genius indifferently showering anyone who comes near,” she tells him. “That makes you a splendid natural wonder, but a decidedly poor friend.” Another is the initially unrequited passion of Sidney Webb, Shaw’s colleague at the socialist Fabian Society, for socialist reformer Beatrice Potter; the two are obvious soul mates, but Potter lacks romantic interest in Webb because of his unappealing looks. And there’s the psychodrama of playwright and legendary phrasemaker Oscar Wilde and his grasping boyfriend, Lord Alfred Douglas, which later leads to Wilde’s ruin. The characters float through London’s restaurants, theaters, salons, and lecture halls and then spend much of the book at the Fabians’ summer cottage in the country; there, they suffer the inedible vegetarian diet that Shaw imposes on everyone and engage in sophisticated conversation about politics, morality, and affairs of the heart. Hall’s novel unfolds through diaries and letters, but it has a polished, theatrical air that’s redolent of Shaw’s and Wilde’s comedies; his version of Shaw has an acerbic egotism worthy of Pygmalion’s Henry Higgins, while Wilde is an inexhaustible source of witticism that hides depths of reflection beneath a surface of frivolous irony: “I adore morality,” he asserts. “It gives my sins their significance.” The other characters also get their due as they go about the work of steady, gradual remediation of society’s ills, and, along the way, they quietly steal the show from the brilliant talkers. The result is an engrossing period piece with gorgeous wordplay and a touch of serious thinking to boot.
A sparkling re-creation of Britain’s literary and political avant-garde.Pub Date: July 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-837073-2
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Inky Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
A romance with bite, wit, and heart.
Two exes must suddenly work together to get a green energy bill passed in Texas in this romantic comedy.
Lee “Stoner” Stone is a success: She’s Director of Communications for Lise Motors, a women-run electric car company, and the brains behind the Green Machine, a bill to replace all Texas state vehicles with electric cars. She’s also a bit of a mess, prepared to drink anyone under the table, up for anything, and queen of the walk of shame. After her "Four Major Heartbreaks," she’s decided that love is a lie and is here for the good times only. When news comes that the governor has finally hired a policy director, she’s ready to turn on the charm only to discover that it's Ben Laderman, her grad school boyfriend and fourth Major Heartbreak. When both bosses decide Stoner and Ben should team up to convince the Senate’s last three holdouts to vote "yes," all the time she and Ben spend together might force Stoner to reevaluate her position on love and relationships. Early in the novel, Stoner wonders where the rom-coms about women "with actual character flaws" are, and this is what Winstead has delivered—a love story for every truly hot mess. Stoner's tendency to meet stress and problems with alcohol, drugs, and no-strings-attached sex set her apart from the typical romance heroine but make her ultimate happy ending that much stronger. The characters surrounding her, from a close group of girlfriends to a concerned family and the family-esque mentors at work, are all wonderful friends and foils. Along the way, Ben and Stoner each make real, legitimate mistakes, which makes their eventually coming together feel incredibly earned. The politicking is also almost painfully real.
A romance with bite, wit, and heart.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-525-89974-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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