Horowitz has finely captured the bored silliness of WASP high society, creating a stylish portrait of an endangered species.
Wry, romantic and a little sad, Horowitz’s first novel is the story of a crumbling family of Boston Brahmins.
Jane Fortune can’t help but feel like a spinster—at 38, she has yet to move out of her family’s home. With father Teddy, a snobbish glamour boy, and elegant older sister Miranda, who is known for her parties, the three live a life of useless splendor in a Louisburg Square brownstone. While Teddy and Miranda shop and gossip and assume that the society page still matters, practical, predictable Jane runs the Fortune Family Foundation, a charitable trust with literary leanings. Jane’s baby is the Euphemia Review, a journal she started 15 years ago, devoted to nurturing new talent. Now it’s an icon and its yearly grant-giving a prestigious name-maker. The Fortunes’ lives seem fixed, until they discover that they’re nearly broke. As a last-ditch effort to rebuild capital, the family rents out the brownstone—and for once in her life Jane is alone and free. Teddy and Miranda decide to winter in Palm Beach while Jane stays and confronts the biggest mistake of her life, letting go of one-time love Max Wellman, now a famous author, nicknamed the “literary lothario” when Jane awarded him the Review’s first writer’s grant. Cautious Jane broke Max’s heart, but now he’s again crossing her path. Staying with younger sister Winnie for the holidays, Jane finds that Max is an old friend of Winnie’s husband Charlie. Of course, Jane is still in love with Max (she even has a service send her all his press clippings), but Max seems more interested in Charlie’s nubile little sister than frumpy Jane. Or does he? Traipsing around Boston, Vermont and Martha’s Vineyard, Jane is being hotly pursued by the well-bred Guy Callow, while hoping against hope that Max will give her a second chance.
Horowitz has finely captured the bored silliness of WASP high society, creating a stylish portrait of an endangered species.Pub Date: May 2, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-087526-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An excellent debut that combines wit, humor, and emotional intensity.
A woman refuses to be with her soul mate, but life intervenes, making her choice harder and more heartbreaking.
Josh meets Kristen with a bang, literally, when she slams on her brakes and he runs into her. There's minimal damage, so she disappears. Minutes later they discover that their best friends are engaged to each other and they were slated to meet that day at the fire station where Brandon and Josh work. Josh is immediately smitten, but Kristen has a boyfriend, Tyler, who’s deployed overseas. Counting down the days until he gets home for good, Kristen adamantly puts Josh in the friend zone, refusing to acknowledge their growing closeness and her spiking attraction. Then Tyler reenlists, effectively breaking up with her. Kristen and Josh sleep together, but she slams the door on his hope for a real relationship, telling him it will never be more than a friends-with-benefits situation. Josh thinks Kristen is mourning the end of her relationship with Tyler, but really, Kristen realizes Josh is her perfect match. Unfortunately she also knows Josh wants children, which would be nearly impossible for them due to her malfunctioning reproductive system. The two reach a painful impasse, but when tragedy strikes, they find themselves reevaluating their relationship. Josh knows he’ll never be happy without Kristen, but he’ll have to think outside the box to convince her to take a chance on them. Jimenez tackles a myriad of issues in her debut and hits each one with depth and sensitivity. Kristen’s take-no-prisoners attitude is smart and sassy and perfectly balanced by Josh’s easygoing resourcefulness, though at times her lack of transparency while jerking him around makes her seem more immature than self-sacrificing.
An excellent debut that combines wit, humor, and emotional intensity.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1560-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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