From period-romance writer Blair (A World of Difference, 1989, etc.), an engaging contemporary story that tips its hat to politics, women's history, and feminism. When 12-year-old Kate Ballard's beautiful, feckless mother, Sydney, runs off with her own cousin, Kate vows never to let love wreak havoc in her life. She's rescued then by a fairy godmother (though sometimes witch) in the form of her maternal grandmother, Polly Benedict, imposing matriarch of a rich, powerful southern clan and mistress of the beautiful South Carolina estate, Kel Regis. Polly was so disgusted with her own daughter (for the wanton escapades of her youth, which included sex with her brother) that she ignored Kate for the first 14 years of her life. But after Sydney's defection, she finds in brilliant, bookish Kate a young life she hopes she can direct right into the White House. Kate warms to the imperious, meddling old woman, but is determined to follow her own destiny. She attends graduate school at Oxford, where she meets Win Talley, a handsome, charismatic young actor whose star is in the ascent. When the two marry, Polly is furious and Kate is exiled from Kel Regis. She puts her career on hold to help Win with his; gradually she realizes she needs work of her own and begins a book that is earmarked for the bestseller list. Her own TV show follows; the marriage breaks up; then Kate becomes a well-known feminist spokeswoman, has a couple of unsatisfactory romances, and is finally accepted back into the family fold. Through Polly's manipulations, she becomes president of her old alma mater, Wakefield College, where she'll endure some rocky times—but emerge triumphant. Interesting, full-bodied characters and an entertaining storyline: a modern romance with a reassuring, old-fashioned ending. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for August)
Pub Date: June 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-553-08924-2
Page Count: 486
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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