In this historical novel, a Women Airforce Service Pilot embarks on a dangerous mission during World War II to retrieve a Jewish scientist from Lithuania.
With no men to spare, women in World War II served in the Women Airforce Service Pilot program, ferrying and testing planes but not flying in combat. Trudy Andrich loves being a WASP: flying the fastest airplanes around is her dream job, and it keeps her so busy that she’s logged more flight time than many men. After she makes a successful dead-stick landing following a mechanical failure, her colonel calls her “the best pilot I have ever met.” That’s why she’s tapped for a secret mission called Project Stinger with Maj. Roderick Jackson, also a pilot. They must extract a scientist from within Lithuania whose research into the differentiation of species and biochemical codes could give the Germans (who would overlook his being Jewish) or the Russians a powerful weapon. It’s a complicated days-long plan involving dangerous flying in extreme cold, disguises, potential combat, and operatives who might or might not be trustworthy, including Rod. He’s attractive, appreciative of Trudy’s blond good looks, and a hero of Dieppe, but subtle clues raise doubts. The mission requires full commitment, giving Trudy every chance to prove her courage, resourcefulness, and flying skills—and just how much a WASP can sting. Sweetapple (Templar Codes, 2014, etc.) writes a well-plotted adventure, with excellent historical details, a lot at stake, and a true-blue American heroine. Getting out alive from her dead-stick landing, Trudy almost face-plants: “That would have been less than deluxe,” she says, brushing it off. Even minor characters come to life, like the lieutenant who actually volunteered for Greenland: “Back home in Alaska, we did the same things…and now I get army pay and free food to boot.” The detailed descriptions of aviation techniques can get lengthy, but the author does a nice job of tying them to specific elements of the mission, and they do serve to convincingly establish Trudy’s competence and authority.
A tight, exciting escapade with an admirable female aviator.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-77289-8
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Eclectic Manor Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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