This coming-of-age tale will leave readers inspired and impatient for a sequel.
A teen mom grapples with new love and a troubled past in this debut novel tinged with nostalgia.
Eighteen-year-old Lourdes Carvalho (who shares a name with the author) is already balancing the responsibilities of a young child, high school, and a job, and nursing a dream to become a published author when she meets Guinness Walsh, a dreamy Grateful Dead fan, in English class. A flirty friendship begins, but Lourdes, whose personality is as strong as her Massachusetts accent, keeps her guard up. Sure, Guinness is gorgeous and kind to her daughter, Monica, but she could never hurt José Martinez, her childhood best friend who clearly wants to take things to another level. It’s classic love-triangle stuff, except that Lourdes is also dealing with much darker things. Years of bullying and childhood sexual abuse (alluded to but not shown in full) have led to her cutting herself and regularly calling a suicide hotline. When she opens up to Guinness about her self-harm, he shows compassion and maturity and shares demons of his own. Later, the pair spend a romantic night aboard his family’s yacht before a freak thunderstorm threatens their lives. The relationship doesn’t magically erase Lourdes’ trauma, but it does give her a confidence boost. Soon, she’s running for class treasurer and getting serious about her writing. Sensitive Guinness is the perfect rival for macho, muscular José. Lourdes hides both guys from each other, which creates a bit of rom-com suspense in the book’s second half. Some readers may label José a toxic “nice guy,” due to the fact that his worshipful attitude toward Lourdes seems mainly driven by sexual expectation. Author Carvalho sets the 1990s scene well with pop-culture references and offbeat, homey imagery. The flood of voices on a party-line call, for instance is “like a tangled ball of yarn,” and the warmth is palpable in flashback chapters set at Red Oak Lane, where Lourdes and her brother, Mike, lived before their parents’ divorce. Still, the author leaves a few important questions unanswered, particularly regarding a mysterious figure who gives Lourdes guidance throughout her life.
This coming-of-age tale will leave readers inspired and impatient for a sequel.Pub Date: May 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72836-089-8
Page Count: 230
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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