While Callanan writes about the difficulties of family relationships and the creative process with a knowing hand, the...
A pointedly literary romance—fueled by two children’s classics—about a Wisconsin woman who moves to Paris with her two daughters after her husband’s disappearance.
From the beginning of their relationship, Robert and Leah shared their separate dreams of Paris. Robert, an author of young adult fiction, has always identified with the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelmans; former film student Leah, who’s become the family breadwinner as an academic speechwriter, is drawn to the Albert Lamorisse film The Red Balloon. When Robert, struggling with his writing and mental health, disappears without a trace, Leah and her daughters, Ellie and Daphne, then 14 and 12, don't want to believe he's dead but also don’t want to believe he purposely left them. Then Leah finds that Robert has bought them tickets to Paris. Soon she's running a quaint bookstore in the Marais, sending the girls to an excellent French public school, eating wonderful French food, and having various romantic adventures. She is also remembering and analyzing her life with Robert, who remains an unsatisfying enigma to the reader as well as to narrator Leah. Nevertheless, Callanan (Listen, 2015) uses every magnet in his arsenal to draw readers of a certain sensitive literary persuasion: the Parisian bookstore, of course; romance between a 40-something woman and an erudite younger man (who is African-American, for good measure); a helpful, impeccably dressed gay male friend; precocious teenagers who love to read; obvious plot parallels to the children’s classics; and the mystery surrounding a manuscript from the still-missing Robert that follows the storyline of his family in Paris too closely for Leah’s comfort. Is Robert in Paris too? Is he hiding from his family or searching for them? Does Leah want him back, or is she relieved to escape the burden of his unhappiness?
While Callanan writes about the difficulties of family relationships and the creative process with a knowing hand, the magical Paris he creates feels forced and threadbare.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-98627-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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