A fun alternative-history tale about a much-delayed American Revolution.
A whimsical debut novel featuring a bumbling adventurer who’s in over his head but quick on his feet.
At the heart of Horowitz’s work is Humboldt “Humby” Yolo Stanislaus IV, a native of California’s Gold Rush country in the modern day. A recent graduate of Fool’s Gold Community College, Humby is still trying to find his way in life, like many people his age, and his degree in gold prospecting certainly isn’t going to help him. As a graduation gift, his parents give him a trip to Bermuda, and while he’s walking on a beach, he trips over a green bottle in the sand that has a map inside it. Upon his return to the States, Humby takes the bottle to Buttercup Flutter, the Fool’s Gold librarian. After she contacts the Library of Congress, he’s flown to Washington, D.C., to speak with government agents about his discovery. The map is of New Britannia, a small island near the Azores. It was secretly established during the Revolutionary War, when relatives of famous colonial leaders relocated there temporarily, intending to return when England won. Now, the descendants of the original settlers are ruled by a woman called “Countess,” who’s related to King George III. Humby is sent to infiltrate New Britannia, but his mission to hide defense intelligence there soon proves problematic, due to his lack of impulse control. Horowitz has created an enjoyable, speculative scenario that asks what would have happened if England continued to rule an American colony. The author’s intriguing answer: Pretty much what happened in the United States, except that in this case, it takes a whole lot longer for modern-day descendants of Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington to reject taxation without representation. Throughout, Horowitz’s narrative is outlandish and amusing as Humby serves as a catalyst for the revolution in his own fumbling way—even though most people in New Britannia think him deranged. Many readers will find it to be a rollicking good read.
A fun alternative-history tale about a much-delayed American Revolution.Pub Date: May 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4834-8436-5
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2018
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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