A few too many secrets and a murder-mystery plotline that feels like a bit of an afterthought can’t mar this brightly...
Four couples search high and low for romance amid the magical byways of Oxford, England, in this second novel.
Twenty years ago, when her parents died in a mysterious fire, Cora Callaway (who was just a child at the time) shut down all her emotions. Since then, she’s felt neither fear nor anger—nor happiness, nor love. Her only wish is to continue working on the scientific breakthrough her parents had been about to announce at their deaths. Her grandmother Etta, who owns a magical dress shop where women can find their hearts’ desires, decides it’s way past time for Cora to learn to feel again. She works her sewing magic on her granddaughter and waits for the inevitable flood of emotions to arrive, especially Cora’s long-suppressed love for Walt, her childhood friend and owner of the bookstore where Cora has spent many hours happily reading science tomes, oblivious to Walt’s feelings for her. Walt, in an effort to excise Cora from his heart, starts reading Jane Austen novels at night on the radio, which brings him to the attention of Milly, a widow trying to mend her own broken heart, and Dylan, the radio-station manager who starts writing to Milly under Walt’s name. Meanwhile Cora seeks out the aid of police detective Henry to help her solve the mystery of her parents’ deaths, all while Henry pines for his ex-wife, Francesca, who harbors a deep, dark secret. And though Etta has set all this in motion with a few stitches of red thread, she can’t seem to work her magic on herself and her long-lost love.
A few too many secrets and a murder-mystery plotline that feels like a bit of an afterthought can’t mar this brightly colored fabulist confection, more sweet than filling but still sure to delight those looking for a little fairy dust in their romance.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7898-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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