Equal parts romance, intrigue and history, a flawed but spirited work.
A historical novel of a young woman’s return to Europe and her service in the French resistance.
The Cross family ekes out a living in hardscrabble Kelly Flatt, Mo., where they have been brought by their father, an opera prodigy who fought in the Great War. When a lightning-felled tree kills her father, her mother turns to drink, forcing the thrush-voiced and raven-haired Christina Cross to find work in a hotel. There, Senator Liam Caradine discovers her vocal talent. Christina accepts the Senator’s patronage and performs at West Point under the smitten gaze of one Laurent de Gauvion Saint Cyr, grandson of the eponymous World War I general, who has come to seek American collaboration against French horizons dark with Hitler’s rearmament of Germany. In love with the paternal senator, Christina rebuffs Laurent, an infamous paramour, only to find herself again in his company when Germany attacks Austria and she, following in her father’s footsteps, travels to France to serve in the war effort. She brings her sister Nicolette to keep her safe from their drunken mother. They arrive in France just as their uncle, General Philippe Petain, is being sworn in as vice premiere of France. At first loyal to Philippe, Christina soon rejects his complacency toward the Nazis and her loyalty turns to Laurent and the resistance. She joins Operation Cri de Coeur, rescuing babies from Hitler’s camps with a submarine based in North African catacombs. But then the unthinkable happens: Nicolette is captured and sent to a Nazi work camp, eventually becoming a test subject for secret Nazi bio-weapons. Christina mounts a mission to infiltrate the camp and rescue Nicolette. Written with brio and filled with ecstatic reveries and 11th-hour rescues, St. Sure’s prose has a passion that often trumps clarity. Naïveté suitable to the ingénue bleeds into other characters’ speeches, even those of ostensibly great men cribbed from history. This tendency, in combination with a poor farm girl’s implausible relation to a political titan, erodes believability and undermines what manages to be an often action-driven and enjoyable ride.
Equal parts romance, intrigue and history, a flawed but spirited work.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4196-6824-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.
Plenty of gore from days of yore fills the 12th entry in Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series (War of the Wolf, 2018, etc.).
The pagan warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg narrates his 10th-century adventures, during which he hacks people apart so that kingdoms might be stitched together. He is known to some as the Godless or the Wicked, a reputation he enjoys. Edward, King of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia is gravely ill, and Uhtred pledges an oath to likely heir Æthelstan to kill two rivals, Æthelhelm and “his rotten nephew,” Ælfweard, when the king dies. Uhtred’s wife, Eadith, wants him to break that oath, but he cannot live with the dishonor of being an oathbreaker. The tale seems to begin in the middle, as though the reader had just turned the last page in the 11th book—and yet it stands alone quite well. Uhtred travels the coast and the river Temes in the good ship Spearhafoc, powered by 40 rowers struggling against tides and currents. He and his men fight furious battles, and he lustily impales foes with his favorite sword, Serpent-Breath. “I don’t kill the helpless,” though, which is one of his few limits. So, early in the story, when a man calling himself “God’s chosen one” declares “We were sent to kill you,” readers may chuckle and say yeah, right. But Uhtred faces true challenges such as Waormund, “lord Æthelhelm’s beast.” Immense bloodletting aside, Cornwell paints vivid images of the filth in the Temes and in cities like Lundene. This is mainly manly fare, of course. Few women are active characters. The queen needs rescuing, and “when queens call for help, warriors go to war.” The action is believable if often gruesome and loathsome, and it never lets up for long.
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.
When Chi Chi Donatelli gave famous crooner Saverio Armandonada a manicure on a 1930s New Jersey beach, little did she know that the swanky singer would change her life.
After his childhood sweetheart married another man, Saverio left the security of his job on the factory line in Detroit, earning his father’s disapproval but opening wide the door to success as a big-band singer. Along his way to stardom, Saverio changed his name to Tony Arma and discovered a talent for romancing—but never marrying—the ladies. But once he meets Chi Chi, his bachelor days are numbered. From a large, boisterous Italian family, Chi Chi is eager to have a life like Tony’s, with the freedom to sing and travel the country. She wants no part of marriage with its shackles. Soon Chi Chi and Tony are touring together, eventually developing a profitable shtick, with Chi Chi writing bestselling songs and Tony serenading them to dreamy audiences. It’s only a matter of time before Tony proposes. After all, unlike his other girls, Chi Chi offers Tony not only beauty and charm, but also the stability of a home. The lovers’ work in the entertainment industry gives way to a marriage blessed with babies yet held apart by war. Once reunited, Chi Chi’s independence and Tony’s philandering further fracture their marriage. But as Tony’s path wends from woman to woman, Chi Chi forges a new life on her own terms. A mistress of the sweeping family saga, bestselling author Trigiani (Kiss Carlo, 2017, etc.) sets Chi Chi and Tony’s lifelong love affair against the grand stage of World War II through the postwar boom years and the women’s liberation movement, tracing a society catching up with Chi Chi’s determination to control her own financial and personal freedom.
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-231925-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
