Not stylish, but fast-moving and richly colored.
Deftly time-shuffled debut historical set in 13th-century Spain.
For his own safety, 26-year-old Francisco de Montaldo, who returned from the Crusades mute and seemingly possessed, has been chained in a dungeon at the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, where he now wastes away. His fabulously wealthy family boasts great fame and honor in the Church; by their gifts to the spiritual glory of Christ’s kingdom, the Montaldos have bought special privilege in heaven. Francisco has been at Santes Creus for ten years, initially sent there to recover from spells of deep melancholy seemingly prompted by the drowning of his older brother Sergio on a Crusade. Now Brother Lucas strives to exorcise the devil while Francisco piecemeal reveals his trials on the Crusade that has left him rotting mentally. Are Francisco’s crooked smile and his demons connected to his brother’s death, or to the fact that Francisco castrated and killed the abbot of Santes Creus, who had himself raped and caused the death of the servant girl Noelle? Why did Francisco take up the Cross and go on King Jaime’s Crusade against the infidel? A dream of the drowned Sergio pointed his brother toward the Holy City, but was it Satan’s finger? What happened at the great fortress of Krak des Chevaliers, to which the infidels laid siege and which Francisco helped defend with his beloved huge cousin Andres? When Francisco saves Andres’ sister Isabel after she falls through ice and nearly drowns, he finds himself deeply in love with the bright, outspoken 16-year-old. The slaughter of his mates at the battle of Toron wakens Francisco to horror before ungrasped. But the true horror begins at the besieged Krak, where Francisco and Andres are betrayed and given to the Muslims as prisoners at the Citadel in Aleppo.
Not stylish, but fast-moving and richly colored.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-50281-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
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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