Absorbing political machinations and sexual tension collide to hook readers.
A historical fable of Venetian politics becomes a queer bildungsroman in this debut romance and series launch.
In the lush world of 14th-century Venice, Niccolò “Nico” Saltano is little more than a young peasant. That is, until the Venetian leadership fatefully plucks the 14-year-old from his place in life to serve as the “ballot boy”—an attendant of sorts to the new doge and also the person in charge of counting the ballots in the doge’s election. One doge dies and another must take office, ushering Nico into the Doge’s Palace and his new life in the Venetian court, waiting to count ballots for the latest Venetian ruler. Unwilling to show up for the final tally, Andrea Contarini is the ultimate reluctant victor to be elected as new doge, and he and Nico form an unlikely bond and alliance as members of the palace brought against their will. The court politics and political intrigue are interesting, but they’re often relegated to the background as other, even more interesting, drama unfolds outside the palace walls. Behind the Venetian rules and niceties is a society that is cruel and homophobic—being gay is a capital offense. The heart of the novel is a coming-of-age story in period dress that follows Nico’s coming to terms with his own sexuality—and the danger that it may bring him. Mellman’s tale shines when it interrogates the ways sex and gender impact the lives of ordinary people, as when the cast reflects on the public execution of a “sodomite” or when, in the very beginning of the book, a character named Alex reveals that she regularly wears male drag. Alex is one of the book’s most compelling characters—a figure from Nico’s past life in the streets of Venice whose class position and tendency to act like a “beggar boy” get her into trouble. If any fault could be had with the novel, it’s that Mellman leaves Alex’s fate ambiguous. Of course, readers will just have to come back for more.
Absorbing political machinations and sexual tension collide to hook readers.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64890-468-4
Page Count: 383
Publisher: NineStar Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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