A first novel, set in the early 16th century during the Spanish conquest of present-day New Mexico, details the adventures of one Mar°a AngÇlica as she both observes and takes part in the founding of Santa Fe. The story opens in 1598 as the Royal Spanish governor, Don Juan de O§ate, leads priests, soldiers, and settlers toward the conquest and colonization of Indian lands north of the Rio Grande. Mar°a AngÇlica is the gorgeous, sexy wife of brutal Captain Vicente de Vizcarra, whose only interest is in finding personal wealth. Mar°a, viciously abused by her husband, quickly seeks an affair with another officer, but their love ends when the young man is killed. Despondent, Mar°a rebounds to the arms of Rohona, a handsome but deliberately maimed Indian slave given by the governor to her husband as a reward for his bravery in battle. For the next two decades, the stories of these star-crossed conquistadors unfold through tragedy, disaster, war, corruption, and imperial politics, all punctuated with religious and racial bigotry and with the cruel arrogance of European interlopers into the bucolic and previously idyllic world of the American Indian. Harrigan provides more or less accurate historical background and detail, and the narrative is bolstered by the intrigue of power struggles between Don Juan and his superiors and underlings. At the same time, credibility is strained by Mar°a's maintenance of her allure and beauty in spite of her subjection to the worst hardships the outpost colony can offer. Meanwhile, there's plenty of soft-core, inoffensive erotica. Generally unoriginal, though a splendid sense of character and language keeps the story moving—until a romantic formula rises at end to conquer and squelch an otherwise satisfying debut.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-85257-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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