A historically rich but emotionally hollow adventure tale.
A father and son set off on an odyssey in Merlino’s historical novel.
In Gaeta, Italy, in the year 872, 12-year-old Andrew eagerly awaits his first marine journey accompanying his father, Leo, to Constantinople, “the queen of cities.” The voyage is meant to be a routine trade trip to acquire some bronze doors for Gaeta’s Church of Saint Mary and give Andrew a sense of his family’s generational profession. But Andrew quickly learns how dangerous and exasperating merchantry can be at this time, as they narrowly escape pirates, witness a shipwreck and save the survivors, and do business with crooked artisans and traders. After an extended stay in Constantinople taking in the historic buildings and exotic sights, such as the Haghia Sophia and chariot racing in the Hippodrome, Leo must find a way back to Gaeta with the doors, which pose a “bureaucratic nightmare” due to tariffs, customs, and greed. The captain of the ship they eventually board admits he’s stopping in North Africa before going back to Italy, further extending the trip and jeopardizing the doors, which Leo must deliver or risk huge financial losses. Leo ultimately decides to leave Andrew behind in the city of Syracuse, leaving both father and son to find their own ways back to Gaeta and their family, who know little of their ordeal.
Merlino, who holds a master’s degree in medieval history, has clearly studied his subject well; the novel showcases how family dynamics, the merchant trade, religion, and politics influenced both society and day-to-day life at the time. Leo and Andrew are not so much individualized characters as they are windows that allow the reader to peek into their world and witness how quickly a seemingly straightforward trip could, due to the forces that powered the Byzantine Empire, transform into a monthslong journey rife with both positive and negative experiences. Unfortunately, Andrew’s and Leo’s lack of depth as protagonists makes it harder to invest in the stakes they face; frequently, intense emotional beats, such as Leo’s leaving his son to complete his trip alone, are reported on rather than unfolding organically: “The decision hardly reassured anyone. Andrew felt horrible that he couldn’t continue on the voyage, and Leo feared for everything. That night was Leo and Andrew’s last one together aboard The Horse, and what a very long night it was!” Merlino’s dialogue often feels at odds with the time period, as his characters tend to speak with contemporary colloquialisms that undermine his efforts to establish a millennia-old setting: “I guess that’s it. We’ll grab our stuff and head to Alexandros’ house. When you guys get home, say hi to everyone for us.” Nunes’ color illustrations, meant to evoke the art of the times, punctuate the introductions of settings and historical items, allowing the reader to visualize the landscape along with Andrew.
Pub Date: May 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780995173156
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Baelena Books
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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