An engaging read about a widow unearthing her family history.
After a tragic accident, a young mother finds inspiration in the 19th-century diaries of her great-great-grandmother in this debut novel.
Readers meet Rachel Tate in her favorite room, the kitchen, preparing a sumptuous weekend breakfast for her husband, Hayden, and their three young sons: 8-year-old Jake, 5-year-old Randy, and baby Ollie. Before the day is over, Hayden drowns rescuing Randy, leaving Rachel devastated. For weeks, she is barely able to climb out of bed. Then her mother, Meredith, asks for help. It is time to move Rachel’s grandmother, whose heart is failing, into her parents’ house, and here begins the protagonist’s discovery of her family’s maternal history. First it is the uncovering of an old photo of Anna and Sal, Rachel’s great-great-grandparents. Then she finds three journals Anna kept during her first years as a young bride, farming the arid plain outside Pueblo, Colorado. It turns out that Anna also lost her first husband, John, in an accident. She was left with an infant son and a child on the way. As Rachel reads the diaries to Gram, she begins to appreciate her grandmother’s mantra: “We’re Murdocks. We can do hard things.” Crystal moves beyond the confines of the diaries to narrate Anna’s story in greater detail, skillfully interrupting the primary tale of Rachel’s gradual progression with chapters devoted to Anna and her struggles. The author’s attention to the particulars of Anna’s daily chores brings the late 19th century to life and serves as a nice counterpoint to Rachel’s 21st-century conveniences. Generally well-crafted prose and realistic dialogue in this promising first novel are occasionally overwhelmed by Crystal’s obvious fondness for similes: Rachel’s “eyes felt like hard boiled eggs rolled in sawdust” and “Fear filled Rachel’s limbs like water-soaked timbers.” And there are a couple of small errors, as when a diary entry involving Anna’s first husband is incorrectly dated “1891,” by which time John would have already died. But foodies should enjoy Rachel’s passion for cooking and her devotion to complicated meal preparation, which will leave readers reaching for the nearest snacks.
An engaging read about a widow unearthing her family history.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5462-1654-4
Page Count: 342
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A smooth blend of suspense and romance. As ever, the author's trademark effortless style keeps a complex plot moving without...
Megaselling Roberts (River's End, 1999, etc.) goes to Napa Valley for the tale of an Italian-American family wine producers rocked by scandal and a series of murders.
Dynasty head Tereza Giambelli knows that her granddaughter Sophia is the only family member capable of running a multimillion-dollar wine business—and no one contradicts La Signora. It's just as well the lovely young woman is still single: Tereza has plans for her. The matriarch has recently married Eli MacMillan, the American founder of another famous wine company. Eli's grandson Tyler knows everything there is to know about producing wine, from the vineyard to the vat. Ruggedly handsome, intelligent and earthy, he's a perfect match for public-relations whiz Sophia—or so thinks Tereza. The two young people begin to work together; Tyler teaches Sophia the fine art of making wine and making love. But other family members hope to claim their share of the Giambelli fortune, and people start dying mysteriously, including Sophia's good-for-nothing father, Tony Avano. Long divorced from long-suffering Pilar Giambelli, Tony led an opulent, self-indulgent life that provides plenty of murder suspects. He might have been killed by the mob, or a jealous mistress, or his spoiled brother-in-law, Tereza's lazy son, who's produced a passel of brats with his foolish Italian wife in the hopes of making Tereza happy. Everyone has a motive, and nothing is what it seems, Sophia discovers, but Tyler stands by her. Then a bottle of tainted merlot kills a company exec. A tragic mishap caused by poisonous plants growing near the vines? Or deliberate product tampering intended to destroy the company? Sophia and Tyler will need to delve even deeper into the convoluted and sometimes unsavory history of the family and its three-generation business.
A smooth blend of suspense and romance. As ever, the author's trademark effortless style keeps a complex plot moving without a hitch.Pub Date: March 19, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14712-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 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.
