An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters.
Moore presents a novel about two sisters who must face their shared trauma after dangerous circumstances reunite them.
Red Nelson, the lead singer of the rock band Sleek, is on the run after finding her manager and ex-husband, Vern, unconscious backstage at a North Carolina show. His attacker tried to hurt her, as well, but she was able to get away. It appears that her old boyfriend Billy Cotton was behind the incident, so she steals Vern’s plane to get as far away as possible. She travels near the Adirondacks, where her long-estranged half sister, Kate, lives. However, Red’s piloting skill fails her, and she crashes in Panther Gorge. Injured, isolated, and desperate, she texts Kate’s 22-year-old daughter, Molly, who’s also not getting along with her mother. Molly rescues Red and houses her in a cabin on Kate’s property. As she begins to heal, she confronts her history of tumultuous relationships. On the other side of the sizable property, Kate is also struggling. She’s a keen pilot, as well, but because she’s had a series of severe blackouts recently, she’s been barred from flying. She also happens to be a member of a local search-and-rescue team investigating the recent plane crash at Panther Gorge. Before long, a media frenzy builds around Red’s sudden disappearance, as she’s a suspect in the attack; Billy also appears, just released from prison. The sisters must make tough choices—between fighting and fleeing and between self-preservation and forgiveness—to protect their family and clear Red’s name. Moore’s engaging offering not only gets across the ruggedness of the Adirondacks setting, with its “jagged cliffs and craggy trees,” but also presents a touching tale of siblings. The author ably brings her characters to life; each woman is flawed and vulnerable, which makes them feel realistic and relatable. Red is shown to be shortsighted in many of her decisions, and Kate is depicted as using steadfastness and regimentation as emotional armor. The sisters complement each other and form a strong bond; together, they forge a believable path forward.
An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798987531709
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Riverbed Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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