An often vivid family saga, centered on a satisfyingly complex matriarch.
A historical novel inspired by tales of the Great Migration.
This fictionalized account of hardship, escape, and closure is based on the stories told by Loucindia, the great-grandmother of coauthors Melody Fowler and Arric Fowler. Drunetta grows up in an unnamed Southern town; she describes her people as a combination of “down home farm stock and uptown education.” She lost her first and only love, Xavier, because her parents felt she was too young at 16 to be dating. At the age of 21, Drunetta later married Abraham Brown in 1935 and started a family. Abraham, however, was unreliable; he drank at the local, illegal bar and ran around with other women. When Drunetta discovered these affairs in 1957, she helped the police arrest Abraham for a violent act he committed, and she took a train to New York City with her youngest three children; two others were already grown. Up north, she struggled to raise her family and came to rely on two very different friends: church lady Sister Rose and bar singer Miss Rayceen. The women, whose backstories readers learn, became emotionally and legally bound to Drunetta and her family, which grew as her brothers joined her in the city. Much of the story is from Drunetta’s perspective; readers will find it enjoyable to see the world through her eyes, and she’s surrounded by compelling characters as she experiences intriguing plot developments. However, Drunetta’s narrative voice is almost identical to those of some of the other narrators, which include three of her daughters. Most of the narration is set in the late 1950s and early ’60s, but the various stories encompass events further in the past; in addition, the story checks in briefly with the Browns in 1971, 1981, 1986, 2009, and 2011. At the end of her life, Drunetta makes an intriguing admission that she says provided her with the healing experience she needed—one that’s referenced in the book’s title.
An often vivid family saga, centered on a satisfyingly complex matriarch.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2022
ISBN: 9781738647026
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A sugarcoated take on midcentury suburbia.
A lively and unabashedly sentimental novel examines the impact of feminism on four upper-middle-class white women in a suburb of Washington, D.C., in 1963.
Transplanted Ohioan Margaret Ryan—married to an accountant, raising three young children, and decidedly at loose ends—decides to recruit a few other housewives to form a book club. She’s thinking A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but a new friend, artistic Charlotte Gustafson, suggests Betty Friedan’s brand-new The Feminine Mystique. They’re joined by young Bitsy Cobb, who aspired to be a veterinarian but married one instead, and Vivian Buschetti, a former Army nurse now pregnant with her seventh child. The Bettys, as they christen themselves, decide to meet monthly to read feminist books, and with their encouragement of each other, their lives begin to change: Margaret starts writing a column for a women’s magazine; Viv goes back to work as a nurse; Charlotte and Bitsy face up to problems with demanding and philandering husbands and find new careers of their own. The story takes in real-life figures like the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham and touches on many of the tumultuous political events of 1963. Bostwick treats her characters with generosity and a heavy dose of wish-fulfillment, taking satisfying revenge on the wicked and solving longstanding problems with a few well-placed words, even showing empathy for the more well-meaning of the husbands. As historical fiction, the novel is hampered by its rosy optimism, but its take on the many micro- and macroaggressions experienced by women of the era is sound and eye-opening. Although Friedan might raise an eyebrow at the use her book’s been put to, readers will cheer for Bostwick’s spunky characters.
A sugarcoated take on midcentury suburbia.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781400344741
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper Muse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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