A gripping paranormal thriller bolstered by a complex heroine and her rich spiritual heritage.
In Pi’s debut thriller, a woman’s career and family are threatened by supernatural forces from her ancestors’ past.
Biologist Nalini Menon, a native of Kerala, India, has a prosperous life in America, including a beautiful home in New York City and a career in the biotechnology industry. She and her husband, Joe, a computer engineer, have two daughters, Anna and Asha. Despite being raised in a devout Hindu family, Nalini had abandoned her family’s religion—until a strange series of events prompts her to return to her native country for a spiritual awakening. It begins when Asha contracts a sudden illness, and Nalini’s maid, Kalyani, immediately recognizes the ailment’s supernatural aspect and begins to pray. Nalini remembers the prayers of her childhood and begins saying them herself. Asha recovers, but it turns out that Nalini’s problems are just beginning, as she’s abruptly laid off from her job. The family returns to Kerala, hoping that a break will help them figure out their next move. After a brief, volatile affair with a neighbor, Nalini separates from Joe, until a near-fatal car accident reunites them. She soon discovers that a malevolent force is behind the various mishaps and that the key to her survival may lie within her Hindu faith. Pi’s ambitious novel weaves Nalini’s story with those of a number of deities, including Kavilamma and Kunjumenon, her family’s guardian angels. Nalini is a complicated character who’s intelligent, sensuous, and deeply devoted to her children. Her journey takes many unexpected detours, and Pi chronicles her emotional and spiritual growth in a nuanced manner. However, the character development doesn’t stop with Nalini; Kalyani is shown to be a compassionate confidante and protector whose second chance at romance in Kerala produces some of the novel’s most poignant moments. The deities also successfully complement Nalini’s story, and their parallel narrative allows the author to elaborate on the protagonist’s religious heritage while also providing context for the events that place her life in danger. Although the novel is long, its skillful pacing keeps the story moving at a rapid pace.
A gripping paranormal thriller bolstered by a complex heroine and her rich spiritual heritage.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1500259006
Page Count: 460
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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