Terrific adventures. Splendid details.
Intrepid early Victorians trek the American desert to photograph a total eclipse.
Historical novelist Byrd sets the presidential series (Jackson, 1997; Grant, 2000) aside to apply his formidable research skills to an inventive tale, set in 1840, of scientists and capitalists in search of wealth and knowledge in the godforsaken outback of beyond. American-born, French-reared Selena Cott is the pure scientist in an odd party that includes a weasely Harvard mathematician, a greedy insurance magnate, a vegetarian frontiersman, and a charming artist, all of them assembled to cross the continent from Washington to New Mexico in search of, among other things, the eclipsed sun. Selena is a math whiz, a protégé of astronomer Mary Somerville, and a beauty whose sea captain father taught her to tackle anything and fear nothing. Skilled in the art of daguerrotypography, Selena plans to take the first pictures of the rare celestial event, best seen in unfriendly and unmapped territory on the far side of the Texas Republic. In her tool trunk ticks the very latest and best chronometer, absolutely necessary to hit the longitudinal mark in the featureless desert. She is also armed with the portable model of inventor Charles Babbage’s fabulous proto-computer. It is the computer rather than the celestial event that motivates financially strapped insurance man William Henshaw Pryce. Pryce’s grasp of the possibilities of the computer has sent him in search of capital for its development. Successful use of the machine to locate the solar event would attract millions. That is, at any rate, his public story. Frontier guide and early health-nut Webb Pattie joins the scientific expedition in Missouri and steers their train of spanking new Conestoga wagons west on the Santa Fe Trail. There are the expected adventures, deprivations, Indian encounters and conflicts, but there is also unexpected skullduggery having to do with Charles Babbage’s immensely wealthy and reclusive Uncle Richard, who’s in sequestered residence with the Kiowa tribe strangely near the astronometrical destination.
Terrific adventures. Splendid details.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2004
ISBN: 0-553-80208-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.
When Chi Chi Donatelli gave famous crooner Saverio Armandonada a manicure on a 1930s New Jersey beach, little did she know that the swanky singer would change her life.
After his childhood sweetheart married another man, Saverio left the security of his job on the factory line in Detroit, earning his father’s disapproval but opening wide the door to success as a big-band singer. Along his way to stardom, Saverio changed his name to Tony Arma and discovered a talent for romancing—but never marrying—the ladies. But once he meets Chi Chi, his bachelor days are numbered. From a large, boisterous Italian family, Chi Chi is eager to have a life like Tony’s, with the freedom to sing and travel the country. She wants no part of marriage with its shackles. Soon Chi Chi and Tony are touring together, eventually developing a profitable shtick, with Chi Chi writing bestselling songs and Tony serenading them to dreamy audiences. It’s only a matter of time before Tony proposes. After all, unlike his other girls, Chi Chi offers Tony not only beauty and charm, but also the stability of a home. The lovers’ work in the entertainment industry gives way to a marriage blessed with babies yet held apart by war. Once reunited, Chi Chi’s independence and Tony’s philandering further fracture their marriage. But as Tony’s path wends from woman to woman, Chi Chi forges a new life on her own terms. A mistress of the sweeping family saga, bestselling author Trigiani (Kiss Carlo, 2017, etc.) sets Chi Chi and Tony’s lifelong love affair against the grand stage of World War II through the postwar boom years and the women’s liberation movement, tracing a society catching up with Chi Chi’s determination to control her own financial and personal freedom.
A heartfelt tale of love too stubborn to surrender to human frailties.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-231925-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.
A forsaken family bound by grief still struggles to pick up the pieces 12 years after their mother’s death.
When famous author Gil Coleman sees “his dead wife standing on the pavement below” from a bookshop window in a small town on the southern coast of England, he follows her, but to no avail, and takes a near-fatal fall off a walkway on the beach. As soon as they hear word of his accident, Gil’s grown daughters, Nan and Flora, drop everything and return to their seaside family home in Spanish Green. Though her father’s health is dire, Flora, Gil’s youngest, can’t help but be consumed by the thought that her mother, Ingrid—who went missing and presumably drowned (though the body was never found) off the coast more than a decade ago—could be alive, wandering the streets of their town. British author Fuller’s second novel (Our Endless Numbered Days, 2015) is nimbly told from two alternating perspectives: Flora’s, as she re-evaluates the loose ends of her mother’s ambiguous disappearance; and Ingrid’s, through a series of candid letters she writes, but never delivers, to Gil in the month leading up to the day she vanishes. The most compelling parts of this novel unfold in Ingrid’s letters, in which she chronicles the dissolution of her 16-year marriage to Gil, beginning when they first meet in 1976: Gil is her alluring professor, they engage in a furtive love affair, and fall into a hasty union precipitated by an unexpected pregnancy; Gil gains literary fame, and Ingrid is left to tackle motherhood alone (including two miscarriages); and it all bitterly culminates in the discovery of an irrevocable betrayal. Unbeknownst to Gil and his daughters, these letters remain hidden, neglected, in troves of books throughout the house, and the truth lies seductively within reach. Fuller’s tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it’s often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth.
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-941040-51-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
