by Lynn Messina ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015
An imaginative and witty retelling of universally acknowledged truths.
Messina (The Bolingbroke Chit, 2015, etc.) reimagines a classic in her gender-bending, modern-day take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
In present-day Queens, New York, brothers John and Bennet Bethle are the spine of the Longbourn Collection’s development department. After some persuasion by their parents, they get their youngest brother, Lydon, an internship at the museum as well—but his definition of “internship” is practically synonymous with “Starbucks.” Mr. Meryton, executive director of the Longbourn, is always close by; he would “never trust an employee to do well what he himself could do perfectly”—that is, to land major funding from New York’s richest. Enter Charlotte “Bingley” Bingston, an enthusiastic socialite and chair of the Gold Diamond Advisory Board who's almost as smitten with the local rugelach as she is with John. Her best friend, Darcy Fitzwilliam, a fellow heiress, has a guarded and cold demeanor which earn her little favor from the rest of the cast. Things become complicated when Bennet runs into Georgia Wickham, an estranged childhood friend of Darcy’s, in the lobby of the Longbourn. The entanglements are knottiest at Bingley’s fundraising gala at Netherfield on Park Avenue. Collin Parsons makes his dazzling entrance just as Bingley quits the city suddenly. After 48 “Bingstons,” or days Bingley has been unreachable, both John, who refuses to pine for her, and Bennet, who was “dissed for the financial sector,” are loveless and in desperate need of distraction. When Collin invites Bennet to the Hamptons for a weekend, Messina raises the stakes even higher: there’s a surprise visit from Darcy, and by the time Bennet returns to the city, Lydon is being held by the FBI for grand larceny. It takes a lot of money, influence, and humbling before anyone reaches a mutual understanding. The characters get a little verbose at the end, slowing down the otherwise well-paced plot, but they’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do. Messina maintains the emotional depth of the characters with easy humor despite their wrestling with first impressions gone awry and the consequence of ill-held grudges.
An imaginative and witty retelling of universally acknowledged truths.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942218-05-0
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Potatoworks Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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by Lynn Messina
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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