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SOPHIE LAST SEEN

A finely crafted tale about grief and mother-daughter relationships.

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A debut thriller tells the story of a woman’s reinvigorated search for her long-missing daughter.

Jesse Albright last saw her daughter, Sophie, six years ago near a circular rack in the kids’ section of the mall clothing store Zone. Every week since the 10-year-old went missing, Jesse has returned to the same spot with the irrational hope that she might find her child: “She’d always told her daughter that if they ever got separated, she should go back to the last place they had been together.” The intervening six years have been hard on Jesse, who frequently talks out loud to her missing daughter even when other people are around to hear it. She’s lost her husband and now toils at a used bookstore, where Star Silverman, who was Sophie’s best friend, has just begun working as well. Star grasps that Jesse is uncomfortable around her and that the woman is having an affair with a married realtor. The teenager also knows about another missing girl whom private investigator Kentucky “Tuck” Barnes has come to town to find. Star has her own guilt surrounding Sophie’s disappearance, and when she and Jesse begin to finally share clues, the girl’s case starts suddenly to seem a little less cold than before. Adelstein’s prose is sharp and haunted, and her traumatized characters are not shy about sharing their grim imaginings of what happened to Sophie. “Her decomposed body is lying in some ditch,” the surly Star tells another teen. “Or her bones are in a Hefty bag in some hand-dug grave after she was forced to commit vile sex acts on some pervert.” Some of the aspects of the plot, like 10-year-old Sophie’s deep interest in bird-watching, strain credulity a bit, but the characters are generally quite convincing, and the narrative is highly engaging. The devastation wrought by Sophie’s absence infects nearly every interaction. The relationship that forms between Jesse and Star—which becomes based on more than simply Sophie’s disappearance—turns out to be nearly as compelling as the mystery itself.

A finely crafted tale about grief and mother-daughter relationships.

Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-948051-18-7

Page Count: 306

Publisher: Red Adept Publishing

Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019

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MAGIC HOUR

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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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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