by Mary Anne Kelly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1995
Fortyish photographer Claire Breslinsky (Foxglove, 1992, etc.) lives in Queens with hard-drinking, underemployed husband Johnnie and two children. Her elderly friend and neighbor is Iris von Lillienfeld, a long-ago refugee from Nazi Germany. Claire had lived in Munich for ten years when she was actively pursuing her career and is delighted to be invited to be matron of honor at the wedding, near Munich, of her German friend Isolde and Claire's onetime lover, Dr. Blacky von Osterwald. The two are to be married at Saint Hildegard's Mill, an inn with bittersweet memories for Iris, who escaped the Nazis with help from then owner Adam von Grunwald. He became her lover, and hid for her a cache of diamonds- -for which she never returned. Adam has long since died, and the Mill is now run by his son Hans, a widower with grown children, with help from ancient cook Evangelika and frosty manager Fraulein Wintner. Also resident are filmmaker Temple Fortune and his effeminate English aide Puffin Hedges. In short order Claire is swept up by an overwhelming attraction to Fortune, and Hans dies in a fall that may not be accidental. The wedding takes place, followed by a second questionable death that brings about the revelation of secrets hidden for decades, the unmasking of a killer, and, for Claire, a mission fulfilled. Here, mystery and suspense, heavily contrived and crammed into the closing chapters, take a backseat to Claire's obsession with Fortune and the interplay among her moneyed, narcissistic friends. Claire, though poor, comes off as self-absorbed as any of them. A jumbled story with pretentious overtones.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13530-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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by Elle Kennedy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 6, 2018
In this opener to Kennedy’s (Hot & Bothered, 2017, etc.) Briar U romance series, two likable students keep getting their signals crossed.
Twenty-one-year-old Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis is expelled from Brown University in the middle of her junior year because she was responsible for a fire at the Kappa Beta Nu sorority house. Fortunately, her father has connections, so she’s now enrolled in Briar University, a prestigious institution about an hour outside Boston. But as she’s about to move into Briar’s Kappa Beta Nu house, she’s asked to leave by the sisters, who don’t want her besmirching their reputation. Her older brother Dean, who’s a former Briar hockey star, comes to her rescue; his buddies, who are still on the hockey team, need a fourth roommate for their townhouse. Three good-looking hockey jocks and a very rich, gorgeous fashion major under the same roof—what could go wrong? Summer becomes quickly infatuated with one of her housemates: Dean’s best friend Colin “Fitzy” Fitzgerald. There’s a definite spark between them, and they exchange smoldering looks, but the tattooed Fitzy, who’s also a video game reviewer and designer, is an introvert who prefers no “drama” in his life. Summer, however, is a charming extrovert, although she has an inferiority complex about her flagging scholastic acumen. As the story goes on, the pair seem to misinterpret each other’s every move. Meanwhile, another roommate and potential suitor, Hunter Davenport, is waiting in the wings. Kennedy’s novel is full of sex, alcohol, and college-level profanity, but it never becomes formulaic. The author adroitly employs snappy dialogue, steady pacing, and humor, as in a scene at a runway fashion show featuring Briar jocks parading in Summer-designed swimwear. The book also manages to touch on some serious subjects, including learning disabilities and abusive behavior by faculty members. Summer and Fitzy’s repeated stumbles propel the plot through engaging twists and turns; the characters trade off narrating the story, which gives each of them a chance to reveal some substance.
A steamy, glitzy, and tender tale of college intrigue.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72482-199-7
Page Count: 372
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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