An intriguing, richly detailed, fictionalized “eyewitness account” of the War of the Roses era.
Bisexual Eddie De-la-Pole details his involvement with the courts of Edward IV and Richard III and his embrace of Judaism in Brown’s historical novel.
The preface notes that the “following book” is a “curious apologia,” written in Middle English and found in a synagogue in Barcelona. The narrative takes the form of the memoir of Eddie De-la-Pole, who mentions that he and his “closest companion,” Rabbi Abraham di Mayora, are now “living, out our days and dreams” in Bruges and Toledo. Eddie shares highlights of his life story: In England in the year 1461, at age 16, he meets King Edward IV at the Battle of Towton. Eddie, a bisexual, is drawn to the charismatic king and soon, even more powerfully, to Edward’s new brother-in-law, Anthony Wydeville. When Eddie travels with Anthony to marry off Edward’s sister, Margaret (“the only woman I have ever actually wanted to marry,” Eddie confesses), to the Duke of Burgundy, the men are initiated into a secret society that leaves them “satiated and happily united as brothers, and loving friends.” Alas, the War of the Roses intrudes, with Anthony soon lost forever and Eddie, after backing King Richard III, fleeing to a new life with Abraham, the rabbi/court diplomat whom he initially disliked but comes to rely on. By novel’s end, Eddie, now past 70, is circumcised as part of his “adoption by the family of the children of Israel.” The author packs a lot of fun and flavor into this historical fiction, including Eddie’s take on Richard’s role in the “Princes in the Tower” mystery. Brown helpfully provides several family charts as references to the intertwining relationships. Some of the story’s threads remain tantalizingly elusive, such as the full import of Eddie’s ruby ring, and questions about just how sexual some friendships became. Overall, this book offers a wonderfully complex narrator’s perspective on a head-spinning time in history.
An intriguing, richly detailed, fictionalized “eyewitness account” of the War of the Roses era.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781802277029
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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