An immersive historical novel adeptly translated from Italian.
An exiled noble seeks his revenge in the second volume of Riggio’s translation of Natoli’s classic Italian adventure novel.
Palermo, 1714: The united forces of church and state are attempting to root out the clandestine brotherhood of the Beati Paoli, whose democratic subversions threaten the status quo. The Church goes so far as to institute an inquisition against the secret society, marching suspected members through the streets and subjecting them to torture and death. The Duke of Motta, Don Raimondo Albamonte, only holds his title due to the treachery he committed against his infant nephew 16 years earlier. The Beati Paoli consider the duke as one of their enemies, going so far as to kidnap his daughter, Violante, from her bedroom one night. Luckily for Violante, the young and handsome cavaliere Blasco da Castiglione rescues her from her kidnappers. Though Blasco is aligned with the Beati, he still feels loyalty toward the duke and his family…that is, until Blasco discovers that he is the rightful heir to the title and its lands. But will he fight to regain his birthright if it means endangering those he feels compelled to protect? The future of Sicily may hang in the balance. Riggio’s translation preserves the novel’s ornate period style (the work began appearing in serialized installments in 1909) without sacrificing vitality or momentum, as evidenced here where Blasco speaks to his mentor, the cunning Coriolano della Floresta: “Dear friend, I am led to believe that fate is the great mastermind of human events and that the philosophers, who trouble themselves to teach us how to behave in this or that manner in order to achieve this or that result, are true charlatans. Life is about the unexpected.” Readers will be reminded of the novels of Alexandre Dumas, but Natoli offers a magic all his own, crafting a labyrinthine Palermo of scheming officials and masked rogues. This and the preceding volume are musts for any fan of Italian literature, or of early 20th century adventure novels.
An immersive historical novel adeptly translated from Italian.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781635769463
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Radius Book Group
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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