Richly detailed, first-rate tale of the religious, social, and political conflicts during the colonizing of Maryland (163849), based on the extraordinary real lives of real people. Robson's earlier boisterous historicals (paperback originals) dealt with 19th-century trials and tragedy among Native Americans; The Tokaido Road (1991 hardcover) was set in feudal Japan. This time, her story begins aboard a ship (``as ungainly as a gourd'') undertaking a hideous three-month voyage from Bristol, England, to the Maryland plantation of Lord Baltimore. Among those sailing, with varying degrees of fortitude: the upper-caste Catholic Brents; capable intelligent spinster Margaret, land-investing on her own; Margaret's fey, saintly sister, Mary; and two amiable, weak brothers. Down in the hold are the future indentured servants for the colony, including a kidnapped Bristol pickpocket, young Anicah, and another teenaged victim, Martin. At last the boatload of hopeless and hopefuls arrives in Mary's Landa half-wild, haphazardly planted settlement. On hand to greet the Brents are the worn, gentlemanly governor Calvert and his sheriff, irreverent Robert Vaughan, who will become Margaret's fast friend. Anicah can hardly believe her luck in being indentured to a tavern-keeper (food and drink to pinch and constant revelry!), but Martin fares ill and finally escapes to the local Indian tribe, one of whose members becomes a friend to the Brents. Troubles brew in the form of contentious Virginia settlers, fanatic Protestant enclaves, and in aftershocks from the simmering Cromwell rebellion in England. Meanwhile, Margaret oversees tobacco crops, the stabilizing of a household, and the keeping of a weather eye on the parliament (though as a woman, she's not allowed in). Throughout, these post- Elizabethans react with timeless bravery. Their punishments are cruel, their hierarchies absolute, but there's also song, poetry, bawdy humor, and their period's obsession with love and death. Memorable characters, scenes, and lilting dialogue: a stylish, superior historical. (Literary Guild alternate selection)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-345-37196-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
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
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