A compelling premise dimmed by flawed exposition.
Two American women of different generations try to make sense of their lives in 1980s Paris.
It’s 1982, and Lily Owens, raised in London by American parents, has graduated from university. Her sister, Maude, suggests she brush up on her French, live in Paris for a year, and take a course on French civilization. In France, Lily meets Octave de Malbert, a Frenchman looking for an au pair for his aging aunt, Amenia Quinon, who has a degenerative eye disease and lives in an enormous house Octave hopes to inherit. Amenia has lived in Paris for 65 years, having married a rich Frenchman, François, whom she met on her family’s ranch in Wyoming. Amenia is initially cold to Lily. At her program, the recent college grad befriends two Americans, who introduce Lily to Thibaud, a French law student hoping to leave France for the United States. Amenia’s large, mostly empty house sits in what had been Jewish ghetto prior to World War II, and Lily essentially allows Thibaud to squat there. The narrative switches between Amenia’s and Lily’s perspectives, and though their relationship is tense, they’re mirrors and inversions of each other. Amenia escaped her old life yet becomes more and more obsessed with her past, while Lily, looking to form relationships in France, worries about her future. Unfortunately, this dynamic goes largely unexplored in favor of other struggles, Amenia with the grief and guilt she feels over François and her political inaction during the Holocaust, and Lily with Thibaud as he invites more squatters into the house. There are some compelling passages, largely concerning Paris’ Jewish history. Fleming’s prose, however, tends toward dull exposition: “I’ve always believed my mother would have been a happier individual if she hadn’t married my father. Because she wasn’t in love with him but with his parents, or at least what his parents appeared to be....Their lack of common interest was a recipe for dissatisfaction, unhappiness.” Still, the setup is intriguing, and readers will want to know the intertwined fates of the two leads, the interloper, and the French mansion.
A compelling premise dimmed by flawed exposition.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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