Sweet and intense, with delightful magical accents, a delectable romance—and yummy recipes.
Broke, divorced and disheartened, Portia Cuthcart leaves Texas for Manhattan, determined to sort out her life and finally embrace her magical way with food.
Portia has inherited a magical gift from a long line of Texas women who offered advice and, inexplicably, the perfect healing dish, but a tragic event caused her to turn her back on this "knowing" and live a normal life. Years later, betrayed by her Texas politician husband, she flees to New York City, where her two sisters live and where she owns the garden apartment in a brownstone. Her sisters have sold their portions of the house to Gabriel Kane, a renowned financier who expects her to sign over her share as well but is stymied when she moves in instead. When Kane’s younger daughter, Ariel, stumbles into a fabulous meal Portia makes for her sisters, she convinces her father to offer her a job as their cook. At first resistant, Portia accepts when she realizes her ex-husband is reneging on her divorce settlement, then sets about trying to open a cafe styled after The Glass Kitchen, a restaurant her family owned for generations in Texas. But as her sisters’ lives unravel, and she becomes more entwined in the Kanes’ well-being, Portia realizes how little she knows about the gift and how unprepared she is to handle the grief and confusion of the family upstairs. Lee takes a new magical direction after the success of Emily and Einstein (2011) and brings a light yet emotional touch as she combines food fiction with magical realism in a satisfying effort only slightly marred by Portia’s continually fluctuating feelings about her gift. However, Kane’s tight-lipped Yankee demeanor paired with Portia’s conflicted feelings make for powerful—and sexy—conflict, and Ariel’s attempts to fix her fractured family are affecting and pave the way for true connection with their magical neighbor.
Sweet and intense, with delightful magical accents, a delectable romance—and yummy recipes.Pub Date: June 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-312-38227-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
