Fans of historical drama—and romance—will fall in love with the noble John and his sprawling Irish Catholic family.
Spanning nearly a century, this historical novel follows one Irishman’s life after escaping the potato famine and immigrating to Canada.
John Doyle comes of age in Wicklow, Ireland, where his family is one of many at odds with those loyal to the British crown. When famine and fever sweep through Ireland, John accepts his landlord’s generous offer to accompany him to Canada and start anew. He hopes to establish a farm and earn enough money to send for his mother, brother, and sisters so they can escape starvation and the workhouse. First, he must survive the long journey across the Atlantic in steerage—another hotbed of disease and death. Upon arriving in Canada, John sets up his farm and seeks a wife. From there, his long, colorful path takes various turns driven by historic events, including the Civil War. Author Doyle based the arc of her novel on her great-grandfather’s story. The result is a vibrant historical tale, full of facts about farm life in rural 19th-century Canada—which crops would survive an early frost (peas, cabbage, fall wheat), for example, and the best way to build a two-story log house. However, choosing to cover the entirety of one man’s long life means that the story ebbs and flows. Similar to Richard Linklater’s film Boyhood, the novel comprises many well-wrought everyday moments. Without a defined storyline or single climactic moment, however, it rambles. The best parts concern young John’s dangerous journey from Ireland to Canada and his efforts to establish himself. Once Doyle starts to explore the lives of John’s sons, daughters, and other relations, the plot strands begin to tangle and fray.
Fans of historical drama—and romance—will fall in love with the noble John and his sprawling Irish Catholic family.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4787-5870-9
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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