The fifth volume in Riley’s (The Pearl Sister, 2018, etc.) series about adopted sisters named after the Pleiades.
Pa Salt, the late adoptive father of the six D’Aplièse sisters, left instructions for each daughter to track her origins to distant lands, thereby providing material for a thick novel about each. This installment concerns Taygete, aka Tiggy, who is an animal whisperer and wildlife conservation expert. Tiggy has been putting off her Pa-dictated origin quest; however, while employed as a wildcat wrangler on Kinnaird, a Scottish estate, she meets Chilly, an elderly Romani man who, it turns out, is a distant cousin. His directive, to travel to Spain, aligns with Pa Salt’s. Following the formula laid out in earlier novels, large swathes of flashback cover the stories of Tiggy’s gitano ancestors, the Albaycíns, following them from 1912 through the post–World War II era. Inhabitants of the Sacromonte district in Granada, Tiggy’s forebears are musicians and flamenco dancers. A few are healers and clairvoyants, proclivities which Chilly will, years later, spot in Tiggy. Her great-grandmother, the long-suffering María, and María’s lothario husband, José, though dwelling in caves, bring up daughter Lucía to become a world-famous flamenco star. The challenges facing the gitanos, an oppressed minority living on the margins of payo, or non-Romani, Spanish culture, are exhaustively detailed, as are the intricacies of flamenco as a dance form. The flight of Lucía and her family during the Spanish Civil War adds tension, as does Lucía’s all-consuming narcissism. As is typical, so far, of this series, the ancestor story overwhelms the present narrative, which here mostly involves Tiggy’s difficulties with men: Zed, a billionaire guest at Kinnaird, is a sexual harasser, and the unhappily married Charlie, Kinnaird’s laird, is not only dangerously attractive, but attracted to Tiggy. Zed has history with three other D’Aplièse sisters and may know more than he lets on about Pa Salt’s fate. The three narrative threads—this novel’s present and past and the linkages affecting the series—turn the book into a doorstop, but Riley fans will not be deterred.
An absorbing drama replete with decades-spanning lessons in girl power.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9821-1061-1
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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A group of strangers who live near each other in London become fast friends after writing their deepest secrets in a shared notebook.
Julian Jessop, a septuagenarian artist, is bone-crushingly lonely when he starts “The Authenticity Project”—as he titles a slim green notebook—and begins its first handwritten entry questioning how well people know each other in his tiny corner of London. After 15 years on his own mourning the loss of his beloved wife, he begins the project with the aim that whoever finds the little volume when he leaves it in a cafe will share their true self with their own entry and then pass the volume on to a stranger. The second person to share their inner selves in the notebook’s pages is Monica, 37, owner of a failing cafe and a former corporate lawyer who desperately wants to have a baby. From there the story unfolds, as the volume travels to Thailand and back to London, seemingly destined to fall only into the hands of people—an alcoholic drug addict, an Australian tourist, a social media influencer/new mother, etc.—who already live clustered together geographically. This is a glossy tale where difficulties and addictions appear and are overcome, where lies are told and then forgiven, where love is sought and found, and where truths, once spoken, can set you free. Secondary characters, including an interracial gay couple, appear with their own nuanced parts in the story. The message is strong, urging readers to get off their smartphones and social media and live in the real, authentic world—no chain stores or brands allowed here—making friends and forming a real-life community and support network. And is that really a bad thing?
An enjoyable, cozy novel that touches on tough topics.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7861-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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