An easy, nostalgic read that’s more sitcom than serious.
When two friends fall for the same girl in Kirkbride’s first novel, the bittersweet past of the 1990s revives love and tragedy.
Two friends living in the ’90s inadvertently fell in love with the same girl. Written in the form of flashbacks from the modern day, Scott’s recounting tells of the best and worst days in his life with his best friend, Larry, and his girlfriend, Sonja. Scott meets Sonja first at bar, but the ever-charming Larry accidently and unassumingly charms her before Scott has the chance. Both guys agree Sonja is every guy’s dream girl: She loves rock music and booze, and she’s hot. As Scott adjusts to Larry’s new life with his girlfriend, Scott remembers some of his best times with Larry. Along with an interesting plot, impressive character development will keep readers engaged. Likable characters—especially down-to-earth Larry—and quick, short-sentences maintain the momentum, while the combination of late nights at New York City bars, rock shows, beer and drugs helps set an authentic scene. The book is written in a style that evokes the halcyon days when life was not so complicated and drinking at a bar with friends was perfection. Despite the detailed dialogue, conversations read unrehearsed, as natural as if overheard from two people sitting a few chairs away. Larry, knowing his best friend better than anyone, is well aware that Scott is attracted to Sonja, and he tries to help him get over her. Still, the girl almost manages to tear the friendship apart, and more tragedy awaits after Scott and Sonja’s one-night stand, with serious repercussions for the rest of Scott’s life. The disappointment even carries over into Scott’s modern-day life.
An easy, nostalgic read that’s more sitcom than serious.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Cerro Chato
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Long, slow stretches mar a novel that portrays life in the English countryside during the early days of World War II.
Injured fighter pilot Mark Brabham recuperates at his uncle’s home in rural England in this World War II historical novel.
While the men (and some women) fought, those left behind (the old, the young and the female) did what they could to keep the home front secure, including guarding the coast and rooting out spies and enemy insurgents. Brabham, a Royal Air Force fighter pilot who learned to fly at his grandfather’s knee, eagerly enlisted in the RAF when he came of age but was shot down two months after joining his squadron. After his badly burned body had time to heal, the rest of his recuperation was spent at his pastor uncle’s home at Lavering-on-Sea. In short order, he was put to work helping out as much as a severely burned soldier could. In between trips back to the hospital, he spent his days leading the Scouts, helping to patrol the coastlines, and spending time with Elizabeth, a working-class evacuee who was working at a local farm and leading the Girl Scout troop. There are periods of excitement here, so the author clearly knows how to build tension, but it often takes too long for something to actually happen. Summers clearly cares about his subject; he offers a rare glimpse into life on the home front—from patrolling the beach to gas and meat rations to the town’s easy acceptance of London evacuees. He also has a strong protagonist in brave, personable Mark.
Long, slow stretches mar a novel that portrays life in the English countryside during the early days of World War II.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452072326
Page Count: 396
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bracing homage to Homer and the Greeks.
A rollicking new chapter in an ambitious, multivolume extrapolation on Greek myth.
For those who slept through Classics 101: The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, an epic conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans during which the Greeks besieged Troy in an effort to save Helen, a beautiful woman who had been captured and held by the Trojan Paris. In the third installment of this particular story, the hero Petraeus attempts to complete his unlikely transformation from slave to king in a seven-book series existing in the same universe as Homer’s classic. Johnson’s novel takes place in between the kidnapping of Helen and the beginning of the war; in it, the Greek king Agamemnon asks the up-and-coming hero Petraeus to pursue Paris and Helen and retrieve the Greek beauty. However, if the novel owes much of its substance to the Iliad, it takes its form from Homer’s other great epic, the Odyssey. Like this second pillar of ancient Greek literature, this novel tells the story of an epic sea voyage that sends its hero careening around the Mediterranean on his winding way to track down the lost pair. During his entertaining, circuitous journey, Petraeus solves a murder, cavorts with Amazons, receives gifts from the Egyptian pharaoh Ramasses, and survives a brush with death at the hands of the evil Ba’al. Most of Johnson’s fresh tale is of his own making, but it takes enough cues from standard Greek lore that mythology buffs will have fun tracking down his more oblique references. Furthermore, though his story is epic in scope, Johnson’s attention to detail imbues his novel a pleasant sense of balance. His brief but thorough meditations on the art of shipbuilding or the intricacies of ancient commerce are as fulfilling as his rip-roaring stories of naval battles, bounty hunters and skin-of-the-teeth escapes.
A bracing homage to Homer and the Greeks.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1456771225
Page Count: 239
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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