A compelling look at the power of small-town gossip.
A former White House employee discovers that her husband’s sleepy hometown has more scandals and secrets than Washington.
As the social secretary at the White House, Bess Warner worked long hours and dealt closely with the first lady. But when she’s humiliatingly fired, she and her husband decide to embrace a slower lifestyle and take over his parents’ inn in his tiny hometown of Greyhill, Virginia. What Bess doesn’t count on is how hard it will be to fit in as an outsider. Most of her neighbors have known each other their entire lives, and they aren’t particularly welcoming to newbies. Struggling to find herself in a new town while her growing kids are shutting her out, Bess wonders what her next career move should be. And then opportunity knocks: A former colleague wants Bess to write a puff piece about Susannah Lane, one of Greyhill’s most famous and mysterious residents. As Bess begins to interview Susannah (who also happens to be her father-in-law’s high school sweetheart), it becomes clear there are a lot of secrets people in town don’t want her to know. The biggest one concerns what happened to Susannah’s high school best friend, who died when she stumbled off a cliff. People in town maintain that her death was an accident, but Susannah is convinced there was something more sinister involved. But the longer Bess talks to Susannah—and the more people in town tell her Susannah is crazy—the more Bess starts to suspect that Susannah may have ulterior motives. Can she actually trust what Susannah is telling her? Or is Susannah simply using her to publicize her decades-old grudges? Lewis (Save Me, 2014, etc.) creates a sympathetic heroine as well as a realistic and full cast of characters around her, including Bess’ good-natured husband, her critical mother-in-law, and the coterie of adult mean girls who run the town. The fast pace and intriguing mystery make this one perfect for fans of Big Little Lies.
A compelling look at the power of small-town gossip.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267335-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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