An earnest but unevenly executed examination of a long-term relationship.
In this debut novel, two empty nesters in their 50s struggle to save their marriage as secrets come to the surface.
In the sun-kissed Tuscany region of Italy, Samantha is reexamining her life and her 25-year marriage to Michael. The couple raised three beautiful children together, but now that their kids are grown, their relationship is changing for the worse. After Michael stuns Samantha by revealing a shattering secret, and during their week in Italy, she must decide whether to try to salvage what they have or to strike out on her own. Michael, an ambitious workaholic, had been content to have her in the role of helper, wife, and mother—disregarding her wants and desires and assuming that her unhappiness was a direct attack on his ability to provide. Now Samantha realizes that she must break out of her gilded cage and find her own identity and purpose. The ensuing narrative gives Samantha’s choices the gravitas they deserve as she vacillates between different paths to take. At first, Greenberg struggles with pacing, but the story hits its stride midway through, when Samantha and Michael leave Florence for Venice. Sometimes the author distractingly uses commas when semicolons or full stops would have been more appropriate: “Samantha watched closely as Stefania said goodbye to Michael, hugging him, she leaned in, her smile dripping with Southern charm.” Samantha’s inner monologue is sometimes inconsistent, as well; at one point, she says that she’s “never that good at keeping her feelings in,” but later, she says that “she kept everything inside.” However, the author’s close examination of what happens when a couple loses sight of each other is strong, revealing the difficulty of navigating a troubled relationship. The Italian backdrop is also entrancing.
An earnest but unevenly executed examination of a long-term relationship.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7321015-2-4
Page Count: 269
Publisher: 4 Pillars Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2018
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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