A dense, thorny romance full of multidimensional, morally ambiguous characters struggling to find peace despite sins of the...
Equal parts family drama and shadowy romance, a story about three sisters in love with the same man.
Forrest, in her debut novel, writes of love, loss and the danger of keeping secrets. Showcasing a large cast of characters, the novel centers on Laura Abbott, an international celebrity who performs under the name Cat Courtney. She’s the youngest of the Abbott sisters, musical daughters of a domineering, abusive man who murdered his own wife by throwing her into the sea years before the novel’s opening. As the story begins, readers learn that Laura is still very much obsessed with Richard Ashmore, an iconic figure from her past. Richard was her childhood crush, though he ultimately married her oldest sister, Diana. At the tail end of her traumatic childhood, Laura ran away from home, likely never to return. She made a new life for herself under her alias, married a wealthy man, moved to London and refused to accept any contact from her family. However, after her husband is killed in the attacks on 9/11, Laura yearns for the people she had sworn off years before. At long last, she returns to her childhood home in Virginia, digging up old ghosts and confronting her demons. As the complex plot unfolds, Forrest frequently peppers the present with varying layers of flashback. Laura tries to move forward and mend old wounds, revealing an increasing amount about the many secrets and mistakes of her past. As time shifts through this complicated story, readers must work hard to keep up and piece together the details of Laura and Richard’s harrowing history. The story contains unexpected darkness and foreboding that lurk in the hearts of her characters and in the themes of the story itself. A cliffhanger ending promises a sequel or two.
A dense, thorny romance full of multidimensional, morally ambiguous characters struggling to find peace despite sins of the past.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1941521014
Page Count: 522
Publisher: St. John Publishing Group, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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