For readers who can swallow their repulsion at the idea of incest, this is a romantic, thoughtful read that could make them...
First-time author Schonbeck offers a romance tale based around a great taboo.
Shortly into the book, Schonbeck delivers a shock to her readers—protagonist Rose is in love with her brother Robert, and her feelings are not unrequited. There’s nothing to mitigate the situation—they are not long-lost siblings, nor were they separated at birth, distant in age or raised thousands of miles apart. They are a brother and a sister as most readers understand those terms, and they are in love. While the author smartly takes care to keep intimate scenes from becoming graphic, interspersing other scenes with the love scenes between Rose and Robert, which keeps sensitive readers from rejecting the book outright based on its controversial subject matter, she does not shy away from much in her handling of this incestuous relationship. Rose wants to be with her brother, and she’s willing to pay whatever the price might be. Robert, on the other hand, thinks that their attraction, and any relationship stemming from it, is wrong and he resists pursuing it. His resistance, however, does not stop him from having several passionate nights with Rose. As the story progresses, Rose and Robert, who are both lawyers, find themselves on opposite sides of a dangerous drug-trafficking case. Schonbeck expertly builds the narrative’s tension, between the siblings and in the case, and Rose and Robert’s precarious situation becomes increasingly dangerous. Despite being involved in such a culturally inappropriate romance, these are believable characters who have friends, try to date other people, enjoy their work and relate to their family. In this sense, the author grounds the novel in realism rather than relying on the shock value of incest to keep the pages turning. Schonbeck writes the romance well while also building and holding a dramatic tension that must, and does, eventually break in the only way that it could.
For readers who can swallow their repulsion at the idea of incest, this is a romantic, thoughtful read that could make them reconsider the meaning of love.Pub Date: July 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-1452839622
Page Count: 437
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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