A romantic thriller that would have benefited from more characters’ perspectives.
In the first installment of Bell’s thriller series, an antiquities appraiser and a wealthy womanizer try to escape the curse of an ancient necklace.
Twenty-eight-year-old Annalisse Drury wants to leave the launch of New York City’s Zavos Art gallery. The owner, Generosa “Gen” Zavos, is her favorite client, but today is the birthday of Samantha Freeman, Annalisse’s recently murdered best friend, so she’d rather not listen to partygoers’ gossip. Gen’s handsome son, Alec, tries to woo Annalisse, but she’s wary of his lothario reputation. Then she notices a gold bib necklace with “a neat row of horses hanging from the collar” on display—one that’s similar to a bracelet that Sam’s killer stole. Annalisse believes that the murderer will come after the necklace, too, which makes the gallery a possible target. Although Gen initially disregards her concern, Annalisse explains that the ancient Persian jewelry is cursed. Later that night, Harry Carradine, Annalisse’s boss, falls unconscious, and he’s revealed to have been poisoned. When Russian-speaking men break into Annalisse’s house, demanding the necklace and threatening to kill her and Alec, the pair flee with the jewelry to the Catskills and then to Greece. Before long, they’re face to face with their true enemy. Debut author Bell delivers a great, slow-building romance, gently examining her characters’ painful pasts: Annalisse blames herself for her parents’ deaths 15 years ago, and Alec was married to a woman who suffered a mental breakdown after a late-term miscarriage. However, it will be hard for readers to become invested in other elements; it’s sometimes unclear why the two main players are willing to put themselves (and their loved ones) in jeopardy for a necklace rather than involving police detectives early on. Annalisse says that “giving it to authorities may put us in more danger,” but it’s hard to believe that holding onto the necklace is worth all the violence and loss that befalls them. Also, the conflict would bear more weight if Bell included the evildoers’ motivations and points of view. Fortunately, it’s easy to let much of this slide and simply watch the romance unfold.
A romantic thriller that would have benefited from more characters’ perspectives.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9995394-0-8
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Ewephoric
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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