A well-intentioned but uneven what-if fantasy.
An obedient woman saves a motherless child from a dark fate in this Christian romance novel.
Young Rebeccah Johnson, pregnant, marries her boyfriend, Leon Samuels. She ultimately bears three children (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) while struggling to finish college and keep her marriage together. Rebeccah rebels, gets chastised by her parents, and resumes her wifely duties only to die from an aneurysm. In the tunnel of the afterlife, she foresees her son Mark’s violent future and pleads with God to save his life. God tells Rebeccah she cannot go back to Earth, but if she accepts salvation, he will place an intercessor in Mark’s path. Rebeccah agrees and moves into the light while God chooses to awaken Deana Murphy from her coma. College student Deana survived childhood sexual abuse that left her infertile. A car accident sends her to the afterlife, where she likewise pleads with God. He commands her to marry the now-disheveled, depressed Leon and change him. Deana is to prevent the future tragedy in Mark’s life—a school shooting. Discharged from the hospital, she submissively moves, gives up her finance studies for waitressing, charges into Leon’s life (and bed) though she prefers someone else, and mothers the boys. Deana (based on a real-life student, who died) looks fabulous, cooks from scratch proficiently, and transforms the home. This sincere story departs from Haden’s (Six Bullets to Sundown, 2017, etc.) many Westerns. The author offers an intriguing spiritual premise and an effective twist at the end of the tale. But it’s unclear how this deus ex machina plot, with a real death turned into a fictional resurrection in an alternate reality, counters “bad things being blamed on God” and tells “about the good things he does.” Deana is a self-effacing martyr (“Promise not to laugh…I’m a finance major”) who slaves for Leon and blames herself for sexual harassment. And Haden’s repeated rhapsodizing about Deana’s physical beauty becomes cringeworthy. The story is episodic, which could have worked had the protagonist (and God) not been robbed of complexity.
A well-intentioned but uneven what-if fantasy.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9847474-0-5
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Denco Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2017
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
